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1202.1484
Coding With Action-dependent Side Information and Additional Reconstruction Requirements
cs.IT math.IT
Constrained lossy source coding and channel coding with side information problems which extend the classic Wyner-Ziv and Gel'fand-Pinsker problems are considered. Inspired by applications in sensor networking and control, we first consider lossy source coding with two-sided partial side information where the quality/availability of the side information can be influenced by a cost-constrained action sequence. A decoder reconstructs a source sequence subject to the distortion constraint, and at the same time, an encoder is additionally required to be able to estimate the decoder's reconstruction. Next, we consider the channel coding "dual" where the channel state is assumed to depend on the action sequence, and the decoder is required to decode both the transmitted message and channel input reliably. Implications on the fundamental limits of communication in discrete memoryless systems due to the additional reconstruction constraints are investigated. Single-letter expressions for the rate-distortion-cost function and channel capacity for the respective source and channel coding problems are derived. The dual relation between the two problems is discussed. Additionally, based on the two-stage coding structure and the additional reconstruction constraint of the channel coding problem, we discuss and give an interpretation of the two-stage coding condition which appears in the channel capacity expression. Besides the rate constraint on the message, this condition is a necessary and sufficient condition for reliable transmission of the channel input sequence over the channel in our "two-stage" communication problem. It is also shown in one example that there exists a case where the two-stage coding condition can be active in computing the capacity, and it thus can actively restrict the set of capacity achieving input distributions.
1202.1498
Preferential attachment alone is not sufficient to generate scale free random networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Many networks exhibit scale free behavior where their degree distribution obeys a power law for large vertex degrees. Models constructed to explain this phenomena have relied on preferential attachment where the networks grow by the addition of both vertices and edges, and the edges attach themselves to a vertex with a probability proportional to its degree. Simulations hint, though not conclusively, that both growth and preferential attachment are necessary for scale free behavior. We derive analytic expressions for degree distributions for networks that grow by the addition of edges to a fixed number of vertices, based on both linear and non-linear preferential attachment, and show that they fall off exponentially as would be expected for purely random networks. From this we conclude that preferential attachment alone might be necessary but is certainly not a sufficient condition for generating scale free networks.
1202.1523
Information Forests
cs.LG stat.ML
We describe Information Forests, an approach to classification that generalizes Random Forests by replacing the splitting criterion of non-leaf nodes from a discriminative one -- based on the entropy of the label distribution -- to a generative one -- based on maximizing the information divergence between the class-conditional distributions in the resulting partitions. The basic idea consists of deferring classification until a measure of "classification confidence" is sufficiently high, and instead breaking down the data so as to maximize this measure. In an alternative interpretation, Information Forests attempt to partition the data into subsets that are "as informative as possible" for the purpose of the task, which is to classify the data. Classification confidence, or informative content of the subsets, is quantified by the Information Divergence. Our approach relates to active learning, semi-supervised learning, mixed generative/discriminative learning.
1202.1547
Nash Codes for Noisy Channels
cs.GT cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the stability of communication protocols that deal with transmission errors. We consider a coordination game between an informed sender and an uninformed decision maker, the receiver, who communicate over a noisy channel. The sender's strategy, called a code, maps states of nature to signals. The receiver's best response is to decode the received channel output as the state with highest expected receiver payoff. Given this decoding, an equilibrium or "Nash code" results if the sender encodes every state as prescribed. We show two theorems that give sufficient conditions for Nash codes. First, a receiver-optimal code defines a Nash code. A second, more surprising observation holds for communication over a binary channel which is used independently a number of times, a basic model of information transmission: Under a minimal "monotonicity" requirement for breaking ties when decoding, which holds generically, EVERY code is a Nash code.
1202.1558
On the Performance of Maximum Likelihood Inverse Reinforcement Learning
cs.LG
Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) addresses the problem of recovering a task description given a demonstration of the optimal policy used to solve such a task. The optimal policy is usually provided by an expert or teacher, making IRL specially suitable for the problem of apprenticeship learning. The task description is encoded in the form of a reward function of a Markov decision process (MDP). Several algorithms have been proposed to find the reward function corresponding to a set of demonstrations. One of the algorithms that has provided best results in different applications is a gradient method to optimize a policy squared error criterion. On a parallel line of research, other authors have presented recently a gradient approximation of the maximum likelihood estimate of the reward signal. In general, both approaches approximate the gradient estimate and the criteria at different stages to make the algorithm tractable and efficient. In this work, we provide a detailed description of the different methods to highlight differences in terms of reward estimation, policy similarity and computational costs. We also provide experimental results to evaluate the differences in performance of the methods.
1202.1568
Beyond Sentiment: The Manifold of Human Emotions
cs.CL
Sentiment analysis predicts the presence of positive or negative emotions in a text document. In this paper we consider higher dimensional extensions of the sentiment concept, which represent a richer set of human emotions. Our approach goes beyond previous work in that our model contains a continuous manifold rather than a finite set of human emotions. We investigate the resulting model, compare it to psychological observations, and explore its predictive capabilities. Besides obtaining significant improvements over a baseline without manifold, we are also able to visualize different notions of positive sentiment in different domains.
1202.1572
Expansion coding: Achieving the capacity of an AEN channel
cs.IT math.IT
A general method of coding over expansions is proposed, which allows one to reduce the highly non-trivial problem of coding over continuous channels to a much simpler discrete ones. More specifically, the focus is on the additive exponential noise (AEN) channel, for which the (binary) expansion of the (exponential) noise random variable is considered. It is shown that each of the random variables in the expansion corresponds to independent Bernoulli random variables. Thus, each of the expansion levels (of the underlying channel) corresponds to a binary symmetric channel (BSC), and the coding problem is reduced to coding over these parallel channels while satisfying the channel input constraint. This optimization formulation is stated as the achievable rate result, for which a specific choice of input distribution is shown to achieve a rate which is arbitrarily close to the channel capacity in the high SNR regime. Remarkably, the scheme allows for low-complexity capacity-achieving codes for AEN channels, using the codes that are originally designed for BSCs. Extensions to different channel models and applications to other coding problems are discussed.
1202.1574
Classification with High-Dimensional Sparse Samples
cs.IT math.IT math.ST stat.TH
The task of the binary classification problem is to determine which of two distributions has generated a length-$n$ test sequence. The two distributions are unknown; two training sequences of length $N$, one from each distribution, are observed. The distributions share an alphabet of size $m$, which is significantly larger than $n$ and $N$. How does $N,n,m$ affect the probability of classification error? We characterize the achievable error rate in a high-dimensional setting in which $N,n,m$ all tend to infinity, under the assumption that probability of any symbol is $O(m^{-1})$. The results are: 1. There exists an asymptotically consistent classifier if and only if $m=o(\min\{N^2,Nn\})$. This extends the previous consistency result in [1] to the case $N\neq n$. 2. For the sparse sample case where $\max\{n,N\}=o(m)$, finer results are obtained: The best achievable probability of error decays as $-\log(P_e)=J \min\{N^2, Nn\}(1+o(1))/m$ with $J>0$. 3. A weighted coincidence-based classifier has non-zero generalized error exponent $J$. 4. The $\ell_2$-norm based classifier has J=0.
1202.1585
Robust seed selection algorithm for k-means type algorithms
cs.CV cs.CE
Selection of initial seeds greatly affects the quality of the clusters and in k-means type algorithms. Most of the seed selection methods result different results in different independent runs. We propose a single, optimal, outlier insensitive seed selection algorithm for k-means type algorithms as extension to k-means++. The experimental results on synthetic, real and on microarray data sets demonstrated that effectiveness of the new algorithm in producing the clustering results
1202.1587
Automatic Clustering with Single Optimal Solution
cs.CV
Determining optimal number of clusters in a dataset is a challenging task. Though some methods are available, there is no algorithm that produces unique clustering solution. The paper proposes an Automatic Merging for Single Optimal Solution (AMSOS) which aims to generate unique and nearly optimal clusters for the given datasets automatically. The AMSOS is iteratively merges the closest clusters automatically by validating with cluster validity measure to find single and nearly optimal clusters for the given data set. Experiments on both synthetic and real data have proved that the proposed algorithm finds single and nearly optimal clustering structure in terms of number of clusters, compactness and separation.
1202.1595
Signal Recovery on Incoherent Manifolds
cs.IT math.IT stat.ML
Suppose that we observe noisy linear measurements of an unknown signal that can be modeled as the sum of two component signals, each of which arises from a nonlinear sub-manifold of a high dimensional ambient space. We introduce SPIN, a first order projected gradient method to recover the signal components. Despite the nonconvex nature of the recovery problem and the possibility of underdetermined measurements, SPIN provably recovers the signal components, provided that the signal manifolds are incoherent and that the measurement operator satisfies a certain restricted isometry property. SPIN significantly extends the scope of current recovery models and algorithms for low dimensional linear inverse problems and matches (or exceeds) the current state of the art in terms of performance.
1202.1596
Allocations for Heterogenous Distributed Storage
cs.IT math.IT
We study the problem of storing a data object in a set of data nodes that fail independently with given probabilities. Our problem is a natural generalization of a homogenous storage allocation problem where all the nodes had the same reliability and is naturally motivated for peer-to-peer and cloud storage systems with different types of nodes. Assuming optimal erasure coding (MDS), the goal is to find a storage allocation (i.e, how much to store in each node) to maximize the probability of successful recovery. This problem turns out to be a challenging combinatorial optimization problem. In this work we introduce an approximation framework based on large deviation inequalities and convex optimization. We propose two approximation algorithms and study the asymptotic performance of the resulting allocations.
1202.1612
Data Exchange Problem with Helpers
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
In this paper we construct a deterministic polynomial time algorithm for the problem where a set of users is interested in gaining access to a common file, but where each has only partial knowledge of the file. We further assume the existence of another set of terminals in the system, called helpers, who are not interested in the common file, but who are willing to help the users. Given that the collective information of all the terminals is sufficient to allow recovery of the entire file, the goal is to minimize the (weighted) sum of bits that these terminals need to exchange over a noiseless public channel in order achieve this goal. Based on established connections to the multi-terminal secrecy problem, our algorithm also implies a polynomial-time method for constructing the largest shared secret key in the presence of an eavesdropper. We consider the following side-information settings: (i) side-information in the form of uncoded packets of the file, where the terminals' side-information consists of subsets of the file; (ii) side-information in the form of linearly correlated packets, where the terminals have access to linear combinations of the file packets; and (iii) the general setting where the the terminals' side-information has an arbitrary (i.i.d.) correlation structure. We provide a polynomial-time algorithm (in the number of terminals) that finds the optimal rate allocations for these terminals, and then determines an explicit optimal transmission scheme for cases (i) and (ii).
1202.1618
Isospectral flows on a class of finite-dimensional Jacobi matrices
math.DS cs.SY math.OC
We present a new matrix-valued isospectral ordinary differential equation that asymptotically block-diagonalizes $n\times n$ zero-diagonal Jacobi matrices employed as its initial condition. This o.d.e.\ features a right-hand side with a nested commutator of matrices, and structurally resembles the double-bracket o.d.e.\ studied by R.W.\ Brockett in 1991. We prove that its solutions converge asymptotically, that the limit is block-diagonal, and above all, that the limit matrix is defined uniquely as follows: For $n$ even, a block-diagonal matrix containing $2\times 2$ blocks, such that the super-diagonal entries are sorted by strictly increasing absolute value. Furthermore, the off-diagonal entries in these $2\times 2$ blocks have the same sign as the respective entries in the matrix employed as initial condition. For $n$ odd, there is one additional $1\times 1$ block containing a zero that is the top left entry of the limit matrix. The results presented here extend some early work of Kac and van Moerbeke.
1202.1639
FastSIR Algorithm: A Fast Algorithm for simulation of epidemic spread in large networks by using SIR compartment model
cs.DS cs.SI physics.soc-ph
The epidemic spreading on arbitrary complex networks is studied in SIR (Susceptible Infected Recovered) compartment model. We propose our implementation of a Naive SIR algorithm for epidemic simulation spreading on networks that uses data structures efficiently to reduce running time. The Naive SIR algorithm models full epidemic dynamics and can be easily upgraded to parallel version. We also propose novel algorithm for epidemic simulation spreading on networks called the FastSIR algorithm that has better average case running time than the Naive SIR algorithm. The FastSIR algorithm uses novel approach to reduce average case running time by constant factor by using probability distributions of the number of infected nodes. Moreover, the FastSIR algorithm does not follow epidemic dynamics in time, but still captures all infection transfers. Furthermore, we also propose an efficient recursive method for calculating probability distributions of the number of infected nodes. Average case running time of both algorithms has also been derived and experimental analysis was made on five different empirical complex networks.
1202.1643
Genetic algorithms in astronomy and astrophysics
astro-ph.IM cs.NE
Genetic algorithms (GAs) emulate the process of biological evolution, in a computational setting, in order to generate good solutions to difficult search and optimisation problems. GA-based optimisers tend to be extremely robust and versatile compared to most traditional techniques used to solve optimisation problems. This review paper provides a very brief introduction to GAs and outlines their utility in astronomy and astrophysics.
1202.1644
A characterization of the number of subsequences obtained via the deletion channel
cs.IT math.IT
Motivated by the study of deletion channels, this work presents improved bounds on the number of subsequences obtained from a binary sting X of length n under t deletions. It is known that the number of subsequences in this setting strongly depends on the number of runs in the string X; where a run is a maximal sequence of the same character. Our improved bounds are obtained by a structural analysis of the family of r-run strings X, an analysis in which we identify the extremal strings with respect to the number of subsequences. Specifically, for every r, we present r-run strings with the minimum (respectively maximum) number of subsequences under any t deletions; and perform an exact analysis of the number of subsequences of these extremal strings.
1202.1656
Open Data: Reverse Engineering and Maintenance Perspective
cs.SE cs.DL cs.IR
Open data is an emerging paradigm to share large and diverse datasets -- primarily from governmental agencies, but also from other organizations -- with the goal to enable the exploitation of the data for societal, academic, and commercial gains. There are now already many datasets available with diverse characteristics in terms of size, encoding and structure. These datasets are often created and maintained in an ad-hoc manner. Thus, open data poses many challenges and there is a need for effective tools and techniques to manage and maintain it. In this paper we argue that software maintenance and reverse engineering have an opportunity to contribute to open data and to shape its future development. From the perspective of reverse engineering research, open data is a new artifact that serves as input for reverse engineering techniques and processes. Specific challenges of open data are document scraping, image processing, and structure/schema recognition. From the perspective of maintenance research, maintenance has to accommodate changes of open data sources by third-party providers, traceability of data transformation pipelines, and quality assurance of data and transformations. We believe that the increasing importance of open data and the research challenges that it brings with it may possibly lead to the emergence of new research streams for reverse engineering as well as for maintenance.
1202.1683
Deployment of mobile routers ensuring coverage and connectivity
cs.RO cs.NI
Maintaining connectivity among a group of autonomous agents exploring an area is very important, as it promotes cooperation between the agents and also helps message exchanges which are very critical for their mission. Creating an underlying Ad-hoc Mobile Router Network (AMRoNet) using simple robotic routers is an approach that facilitates communication between the agents without restricting their movements. We address the following question in our paper: How to create an AMRoNet with local information and with minimum number of routers? We propose two new localized and distributed algorithms 1) agent-assisted router deployment and 2) a self-spreading for creating AMRoNet. The algorithms use a greedy deployment strategy for deploying routers effectively into the area maximizing coverage and a triangular deployment strategy to connect different connected component of routers from different base stations. Empirical analysis shows that the proposed algorithms are the two best localized approaches to create AMRoNets.
1202.1685
Combined Haar-Hilbert and Log-Gabor Based Iris Encoders
cs.CV
This chapter shows that combining Haar-Hilbert and Log-Gabor improves iris recognition performance leading to a less ambiguous biometric decision landscape in which the overlap between the experimental intra- and interclass score distributions diminishes or even vanishes. Haar-Hilbert, Log-Gabor and combined Haar-Hilbert and Log-Gabor encoders are tested here both for single and dual iris approach. The experimental results confirm that the best performance is obtained for the dual iris approach when the iris code is generated using the combined Haar-Hilbert and Log-Gabor encoder, and when the matching score fuses the information from both Haar-Hilbert and Log-Gabor channels of the combined encoder.
1202.1692
Efficient Decoding of Partial Unit Memory Codes of Arbitrary Rate
cs.IT math.IT
Partial Unit Memory (PUM) codes are a special class of convolutional codes, which are often constructed by means of block codes. Decoding of PUM codes may take advantage of existing decoders for the block code. The Dettmar--Sorger algorithm is an efficient decoding algorithm for PUM codes, but allows only low code rates. The same restriction holds for several known PUM code constructions. In this paper, an arbitrary-rate construction, the analysis of its distance parameters and a generalized decoding algorithm for PUM codes of arbitrary rate are provided. The correctness of the algorithm is proven and it is shown that its complexity is cubic in the length.
1202.1694
Learning to Place New Objects in a Scene
cs.RO
Placing is a necessary skill for a personal robot to have in order to perform tasks such as arranging objects in a disorganized room. The object placements should not only be stable but also be in their semantically preferred placing areas and orientations. This is challenging because an environment can have a large variety of objects and placing areas that may not have been seen by the robot before. In this paper, we propose a learning approach for placing multiple objects in different placing areas in a scene. Given point-clouds of the objects and the scene, we design appropriate features and use a graphical model to encode various properties, such as the stacking of objects, stability, object-area relationship and common placing constraints. The inference in our model is an integer linear program, which we solve efficiently via an LP relaxation. We extensively evaluate our approach on 98 objects from 16 categories being placed into 40 areas. Our robotic experiments show a success rate of 98% in placing known objects and 82% in placing new objects stably. We use our method on our robots for performing tasks such as loading several dish-racks, a bookshelf and a fridge with multiple items.
1202.1708
A Polynomial Time Approximation Scheme for a Single Machine Scheduling Problem Using a Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm
cs.NE
Nowadays hybrid evolutionary algorithms, i.e, heuristic search algorithms combining several mutation operators some of which are meant to implement stochastically a well known technique designed for the specific problem in question while some others playing the role of random search, have become rather popular for tackling various NP-hard optimization problems. While empirical studies demonstrate that hybrid evolutionary algorithms are frequently successful at finding solutions having fitness sufficiently close to the optimal, many fewer articles address the computational complexity in a mathematically rigorous fashion. This paper is devoted to a mathematically motivated design and analysis of a parameterized family of evolutionary algorithms which provides a polynomial time approximation scheme for one of the well-known NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems, namely the "single machine scheduling problem without precedence constraints". The authors hope that the techniques and ideas developed in this article may be applied in many other situations.
1202.1734
Superiority of TDMA in a Class of Gaussian Multiple-Access Channels with a MIMO-AF-Relay
cs.IT math.IT
We consider a Gaussian multiple-access channel (MAC) with an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay, where all nodes except the receiver have multiple antennas and the direct links between transmitters and receivers are neglected. Thus, spatial processing can be applied both at the transmitters and at the relay, which is subject to optimization for increasing the data rates. In general, this optimization problem is non-convex and hard to solve. While in prior work on this problem, it is assumed that all transmitters access the channel jointly, we propose a solution where each transmitter accesses the channel exclusively, using a time-division multiple-access (TDMA) scheme. It is shown that this scheme provides higher achievable sum rates, which raises the question of the need for TDMA to achieve the general capacity region of MACs with AF relay.
1202.1740
A Diversity-Multiplexing-Delay Tradeoff of ARQ Protocols in The Z-interference Channel
cs.IT math.IT
In this work, we analyze the fundamental performance tradeoff of the single-antenna Automatic Retransmission reQuest (ARQ) Z-interference channel (ZIC). Specifically, we characterize the achievable three-dimensional tradeoff between diversity (reliability), multiplexing (throughput), and delay (maximum number of retransmissions) of two ARQ protocols: A non-cooperative protocol and a cooperative one. Considering no cooperation exists, we study the achievable tradeoff of the fixed-power split Han-Kobayashi (HK) approach. Interestingly, we demonstrate that if the second user transmits the common part only of its message in the event of its successful decoding and a decoding failure at the first user, communication is improved over that achieved by keeping or stopping the transmission of both the common and private messages. We obtain closed-form expressions for the achievable tradeoff under the HK splitting. Under cooperation, two special cases of the HK are considered for static and dynamic decoders. The difference between the two decoders lies in the ability of the latter to dynamically choose which HK special-case decoding to apply. Cooperation is shown to dramatically increase the achievable first user diversity.
1202.1742
Stabilizing sliding mode control design and application for a dc motor: Speed control
cs.SY
The regulation by sliding mode control (SMC) is recognized for its qualities of robustness and dynamic response. This article will briefly talk about the regulation principles by sliding mode as well as the application of this approach to the adjustment of a speed control DC motor bench using the TY36A/EV unit. This unit, from Electronica Veneta products, uses a PID controller to control the speed and position of the DC motor. Our purpose is to improve the set time answer and the robustness of the system when disturbances take place. The experimental results show very good performances of the proposed approach relatively to the PID.
1202.1747
Growth Patterns of Subway/Metro Systems Tracked by Degree Correlation
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Urban transportation systems grow over time as city populations grow and move and their transportation needs evolve. Typical network growth models, such as preferential attachment, grow the network node by node whereas rail and metro systems grow by adding entire lines with all their nodes. The objective of this paper is to see if any canonical regular network forms such as stars or grids capture the growth patterns of urban metro systems for which we have historical data in terms of old maps. Data from these maps reveal that the systems' Pearson degree correlation grows increasingly from initially negative values toward positive values over time and in some cases becomes decidedly positive. We have derived closed form expressions for degree correlation and clustering coefficient for a variety of canonical forms that might be similar to metro systems. Of all those examined, only a few types patterned after a wide area network (WAN) with a "core-periphery" structure show similar positive-trending degree correlation as network size increases. This suggests that large metro systems either are designed or evolve into the equivalent of message carriers that seek to balance travel between arbitrary node-destination pairs with avoidance of congestion in the central regions of the network. Keywords: metro, subway, urban transport networks, degree correlation
1202.1779
Finding the Graph of Epidemic Cascades
cs.SI physics.soc-ph stat.ML
We consider the problem of finding the graph on which an epidemic cascade spreads, given only the times when each node gets infected. While this is a problem of importance in several contexts -- offline and online social networks, e-commerce, epidemiology, vulnerabilities in infrastructure networks -- there has been very little work, analytical or empirical, on finding the graph. Clearly, it is impossible to do so from just one cascade; our interest is in learning the graph from a small number of cascades. For the classic and popular "independent cascade" SIR epidemics, we analytically establish the number of cascades required by both the global maximum-likelihood (ML) estimator, and a natural greedy algorithm. Both results are based on a key observation: the global graph learning problem decouples into $n$ local problems -- one for each node. For a node of degree $d$, we show that its neighborhood can be reliably found once it has been infected $O(d^2 \log n)$ times (for ML on general graphs) or $O(d\log n)$ times (for greedy on trees). We also provide a corresponding information-theoretic lower bound of $\Omega(d\log n)$; thus our bounds are essentially tight. Furthermore, if we are given side-information in the form of a super-graph of the actual graph (as is often the case), then the number of cascade samples required -- in all cases -- becomes independent of the network size $n$. Finally, we show that for a very general SIR epidemic cascade model, the Markov graph of infection times is obtained via the moralization of the network graph.
1202.1801
Network Coded Gossip with Correlated Data
cs.IT cs.DC cs.DS math.IT
We design and analyze gossip algorithms for networks with correlated data. In these networks, either the data to be distributed, the data already available at the nodes, or both, are correlated. This model is applicable for a variety of modern networks, such as sensor, peer-to-peer and content distribution networks. Although coding schemes for correlated data have been studied extensively, the focus has been on characterizing the rate region in static memory-free networks. In a gossip-based scheme, however, nodes communicate among each other by continuously exchanging packets according to some underlying communication model. The main figure of merit in this setting is the stopping time -- the time required until nodes can successfully decode. While Gossip schemes are practical, distributed and scalable, they have only been studied for uncorrelated data. We wish to close this gap by providing techniques to analyze network coded gossip in (dynamic) networks with correlated data. We give a clean framework for oblivious network models that applies to a multitude of network and communication scenarios, specify a general setting for distributed correlated data, and give tight bounds on the stopping times of network coded protocols in this wide range of scenarios.
1202.1808
Personalised product design using virtual interactive techniques
cs.MM cs.CV cs.GR
Use of Virtual Interactive Techniques for personalized product design is described in this paper. Usually products are designed and built by considering general usage patterns and Prototyping is used to mimic the static or working behaviour of an actual product before manufacturing the product. The user does not have any control on the design of the product. Personalized design postpones design to a later stage. It allows for personalized selection of individual components by the user. This is implemented by displaying the individual components over a physical model constructed using Cardboard or Thermocol in the actual size and shape of the original product. The components of the equipment or product such as screen, buttons etc. are then projected using a projector connected to the computer into the physical model. Users can interact with the prototype like the original working equipment and they can select, shape, position the individual components displayed on the interaction panel using simple hand gestures. Computer Vision techniques as well as sound processing techniques are used to detect and recognize the user gestures captured using a web camera and microphone.
1202.1837
A Proposed Architecture for Continuous Web Monitoring Through Online Crawling of Blogs
cs.IR cs.SI
Getting informed of what is registered in the Web space on time, can greatly help the psychologists, marketers and political analysts to familiarize, analyse, make decision and act correctly based on the society`s different needs. The great volume of information in the Web space hinders us to continuously online investigate the whole space of the Web. Focusing on the considered blogs limits our working domain and makes the online crawling in the Web space possible. In this article, an architecture is offered which continuously online crawls the related blogs, using focused crawler, and investigates and analyses the obtained data. The online fetching is done based on the latest announcements of the ping server machines. A weighted graph is formed based on targeting the important key phrases, so that a focused crawler can do the fetching of the complete texts of the related Web pages, based on the weighted graph.
1202.1841
Semantic Visualization and Navigation in Textual Corpus
cs.IR cs.DL cs.GR cs.SI
This paper gives a survey of related work on the information visualization domain and study the real integration of the cartography paradigms in actual information search systems. Based on this study, we propose a semantic visualization and navigation approach which offer to users three search modes: precise search, connotative search and thematic search. The objective is to propose to the users of an information search system, new interaction paradigms which support the semantic aspect of the considered information space and guide users in their searches by assisting them to locate their interest center and to improve serendipity.
1202.1842
Network Backbone Discovery Using Edge Clustering
cs.SI cs.DS
In this paper, we investigate the problem of network backbone discovery. In complex systems, a "backbone" takes a central role in carrying out the system functionality and carries the bulk of system traffic. It also both simplifies and highlight underlying networking structure. Here, we propose an integrated graph theoretical and information theoretical network backbone model. We develop an efficient mining algorithm based on Kullback-Leibler divergence optimization procedure and maximal weight connected subgraph discovery procedure. A detailed experimental evaluation demonstrates both the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach. The case studies in the real world domain further illustrates the usefulness of the discovered network backbones.
1202.1881
A personalized web page content filtering model based on segmentation
cs.IR
In the view of massive content explosion in World Wide Web through diverse sources, it has become mandatory to have content filtering tools. The filtering of contents of the web pages holds greater significance in cases of access by minor-age people. The traditional web page blocking systems goes by the Boolean methodology of either displaying the full page or blocking it completely. With the increased dynamism in the web pages, it has become a common phenomenon that different portions of the web page holds different types of content at different time instances. This paper proposes a model to block the contents at a fine-grained level i.e. instead of completely blocking the page it would be efficient to block only those segments which holds the contents to be blocked. The advantages of this method over the traditional methods are fine-graining level of blocking and automatic identification of portions of the page to be blocked. The experiments conducted on the proposed model indicate 88% of accuracy in filtering out the segments.
1202.1886
Classification of artificial intelligence ids for smurf attack
cs.AI
Many methods have been developed to secure the network infrastructure and communication over the Internet. Intrusion detection is a relatively new addition to such techniques. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are used to find out if someone has intrusion into or is trying to get it the network. One big problem is amount of Intrusion which is increasing day by day. We need to know about network attack information using IDS, then analysing the effect. Due to the nature of IDSs which are solely signature based, every new intrusion cannot be detected; so it is important to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) methods / techniques in IDS. Introduction of AI necessitates the importance of normalization in intrusions. This work is focused on classification of AI based IDS techniques which will help better design intrusion detection systems in the future. We have also proposed a support vector machine for IDS to detect Smurf attack with much reliable accuracy.
1202.1888
Equivalence of SLNR Precoder and RZF Precoder in Downlink MU-MIMO Systems
cs.IT math.IT
The signal-to-leakage-and-noise ratio (SLNR) precoder is widely used for MU-MIMO systems in many works, and observed with improved performance from zeroforcing (ZF) precoder. Our work proofs SLNR precoder is completely equivalent to conventional regulated ZF (RZF) precoder, which has significant gain over ZF precoder at low SNRs. Therefore, with our conclusion, the existing performance analysis about RZF precoder can be readily applicable to SLNR precoder.
1202.1891
Hyper heuristic based on great deluge and its variants for exam timetabling problem
cs.AI
Today, University Timetabling problems are occurred annually and they are often hard and time consuming to solve. This paper describes Hyper Heuristics (HH) method based on Great Deluge (GD) and its variants for solving large, highly constrained timetabling problems from different domains. Generally, in hyper heuristic framework, there are two main stages: heuristic selection and move acceptance. This paper emphasizes on the latter stage to develop Hyper Heuristic (HH) framework. The main contribution of this paper is that Great Deluge (GD) and its variants: Flex Deluge(FD), Non-linear(NLGD), Extended Great Deluge(EGD) are used as move acceptance method in HH by combining Reinforcement learning (RL).These HH methods are tested on exam benchmark timetabling problem and best results and comparison analysis are reported.
1202.1909
On the Degrees of Freedom of time correlated MISO broadcast channel with delayed CSIT
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the time correlated MISO broadcast channel where the transmitter has partial knowledge on the current channel state, in addition to delayed channel state information (CSI). Rather than exploiting only the current CSI, as the zero-forcing precoding, or only the delayed CSI, as the Maddah-Ali-Tse (MAT) scheme, we propose a seamless strategy that takes advantage of both. The achievable degrees of freedom of the proposed scheme is characterized in terms of the quality of the current channel knowledge.
1202.1914
Global Maps of Science based on the new Web-of-Science Categories
cs.DL cs.SI
In August 2011, Thomson Reuters launched version 5 of the Science and Social Science Citation Index in the Web of Science (WoS). Among other things, the 222 ISI Subject Categories (SCs) for these two databases in version 4 of WoS were renamed and extended to 225 WoS Categories (WCs). A new set of 151 Subject Categories (SCs) was added, but at a higher level of aggregation. Since we previously used the ISI SCs as the baseline for a global map in Pajek (Rafols et al., 2010) and brought this facility online (at http://www.leydesdorff.net/overlaytoolkit), we recalibrated this map for the new WC categories using the Journal Citation Reports 2010. In the new installation, the base maps can also be made using VOSviewer (Van Eck & Waltman, 2010).
1202.1941
An Intelligent Mobile-Agent Based Scalable Network Management Architecture for Large-Scale Enterprise System
cs.NI cs.DC cs.MA
Several Mobile Agent based distributed network management models have been proposed in recent times to address the scalability and flexibility problems of centralized (SNMP or CMIP management models) models. Though the use of Mobile Agents to distribute and delegate management tasks comes handy in dealing with the previously stated issues, many of the agent-based management frameworks like initial flat bed models and static mid-level managers employing mobile agents models cannot efficiently meet the demands of current networks which are growing in size and complexity. Moreover, varied technologies, such as SONET, ATM, Ethernet, DWDM etc., present at different layers of the Access, Metro and Core (long haul) sections of the network, have contributed to the complexity in terms of their own framing and protocol structures. Thus, controlling and managing the traffic in these networks is a challenging task. This paper presents an intelligent scalable hierarchical agent based model for the management of large-scale complex networks to address aforesaid issues. The cost estimation, carried out with a view to compute the overall management cost in terms of management data overhead, is being presented. The results obtained thereafter establish the usefulness of the presented architecture as compare to centralized and flat bed agent based models.
1202.1943
3D Model Assisted Image Segmentation
cs.CV
The problem of segmenting a given image into coherent regions is important in Computer Vision and many industrial applications require segmenting a known object into its components. Examples include identifying individual parts of a component for process control work in a manufacturing plant and identifying parts of a car from a photo for automatic damage detection. Unfortunately most of an object's parts of interest in such applications share the same pixel characteristics, having similar colour and texture. This makes segmenting the object into its components a non-trivial task for conventional image segmentation algorithms. In this paper, we propose a "Model Assisted Segmentation" method to tackle this problem. A 3D model of the object is registered over the given image by optimising a novel gradient based loss function. This registration obtains the full 3D pose from an image of the object. The image can have an arbitrary view of the object and is not limited to a particular set of views. The segmentation is subsequently performed using a level-set based method, using the projected contours of the registered 3D model as initialisation curves. The method is fully automatic and requires no user interaction. Also, the system does not require any prior training. We present our results on photographs of a real car.
1202.1945
A framework: Cluster detection and multidimensional visualization of automated data mining using intelligent agents
cs.AI
Data Mining techniques plays a vital role like extraction of required knowledge, finding unsuspected information to make strategic decision in a novel way which in term understandable by domain experts. A generalized frame work is proposed by considering non - domain experts during mining process for better understanding, making better decision and better finding new patters in case of selecting suitable data mining techniques based on the user profile by means of intelligent agents. KEYWORDS: Data Mining Techniques, Intelligent Agents, User Profile, Multidimensional Visualization, Knowledge Discovery.
1202.1990
Non-parametric convolution based image-segmentation of ill-posed objects applying context window approach
cs.CV
Context-dependence in human cognition process is a well-established fact. Following this, we introduced the image segmentation method that can use context to classify a pixel on the basis of its membership to a particular object-class of the concerned image. In the broad methodological steps, each pixel was defined by its context window (CW) surrounding it the size of which was fixed heuristically. CW texture defined by the intensities of its pixels was convoluted with weights optimized through a non-parametric function supported by a backpropagation network. Result of convolution was used to classify them. The training data points (i.e., pixels) were carefully chosen to include all variety of contexts of types, i) points within the object, ii) points near the edge but inside the objects, iii) points at the border of the objects, iv) points near the edge but outside the objects, v) points near or at the edge of the image frame. Moreover the training data points were selected from all the images within image-dataset. CW texture information for 1000 pixels from face area and background area of images were captured, out of which 700 CWs were used as training input data, and remaining 300 for testing. Our work gives the first time foundation of quantitative enumeration of efficiency of image-segmentation which is extendable to segment out more than 2 objects within an image.
1202.1992
A Comparison of Soft and Hard Coded Relaying
cs.IT math.IT
"Amplify and Forward" and "Decode and Forward" are the two main relaying functions that have been proposed since the advent of cooperative communication. "\textit{Soft} Decode and Forward" is a recently introduced relaying principle that is to combine the benefits of the classical two relaying algorithms. In this work, we thoroughly investigate \textit{soft} relaying algorithms when convolutional or turbo codes are applied. We study the error performance of two cooperative scenarios employing soft-relaying. A novel approach, the mutual information loss due to data processing, is proposed to analyze the relay-based soft encoder. We also introduce a novel approach to derive the estimated bit error rate and the equivalent channel SNR for the relaying techniques considered in the paper.
1202.2026
A quantum genetic algorithm with quantum crossover and mutation operations
cs.NE quant-ph
In the context of evolutionary quantum computing in the literal meaning, a quantum crossover operation has not been introduced so far. Here, we introduce a novel quantum genetic algorithm which has a quantum crossover procedure performing crossovers among all chromosomes in parallel for each generation. A complexity analysis shows that a quadratic speedup is achieved over its classical counterpart in the dominant factor of the run time to handle each generation.
1202.2037
Note on RIP-based Co-sparse Analysis
cs.IT math.IT
Over the past years, there are increasing interests in recovering the signals from undersampling data where such signals are sparse under some orthogonal dictionary or tight framework, which is referred to be sparse synthetic model. More recently, its counterpart, i.e., the sparse analysis model, has also attracted researcher's attentions where many practical signals which are sparse in the truly redundant dictionary are concerned. This short paper presents important complement to the results in existing literatures for treating sparse analysis model. Firstly, we give the natural generalization of well-known restricted isometry property (RIP) to deal with sparse analysis model, where the truly arbitrary incoherent dictionary is considered. Secondly, we studied the theoretical guarantee for the accurate recovery of signal which is sparse in general redundant dictionaries through solving l1-norm sparsity-promoted optimization problem. This work shows not only that compressed sensing is viable in the context of sparse analysis, but also that accurate recovery is possible via solving l1-minimization problem.
1202.2082
Multiuser Detection and Channel Estimation for Multibeam Satellite Communications
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, iterative multi-user detection techniques for multi-beam communications are presented. The solutions are based on a successive interference cancellation architecture and a channel decoding to treat the co-channel interference. Beams forming and channels coefficients are estimated and updated iteratively. A developed technique of signals combining allows power improvement of the useful received signal; and then reduction of the bit error rates with low signal to noise ratios. The approach is applied to a synchronous multi-beam satellite link under an additive white Gaussian channel. Evaluation of the techniques is done with computer simulations, where a noised and multi-access environment is considered. The simulations results show the good performance of the proposed solutions.
1202.2088
Coded Cooperative Data Exchange Problem for General Topologies
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the "coded cooperative data exchange problem" for general graphs. In this problem, given a graph G=(V,E) representing clients in a broadcast network, each of which initially hold a (not necessarily disjoint) set of information packets; one wishes to design a communication scheme in which eventually all clients will hold all the packets of the network. Communication is performed in rounds, where in each round a single client broadcasts a single (possibly encoded) information packet to its neighbors in G. The objective is to design a broadcast scheme that satisfies all clients with the minimum number of broadcast rounds. The coded cooperative data exchange problem has seen significant research over the last few years; mostly when the graph G is the complete broadcast graph in which each client is adjacent to all other clients in the network, but also on general topologies, both in the fractional and integral setting. In this work we focus on the integral setting in general undirected topologies G. We tie the data exchange problem on G to certain well studied combinatorial properties of G and in such show that solving the problem exactly or even approximately within a multiplicative factor of \log{|V|} is intractable (i.e., NP-Hard). We then turn to study efficient data exchange schemes yielding a number of communication rounds comparable to our intractability result. Our communication schemes do not involve encoding, and in such yield bounds on the "coding advantage" in the setting at hand.
1202.2089
The Supermarket Game
cs.IT cs.GT math.IT
A supermarket game is considered with $N$ FCFS queues with unit exponential service rate and global Poisson arrival rate $N \lambda$. Upon arrival each customer chooses a number of queues to be sampled uniformly at random and joins the least loaded sampled queue. Customers are assumed to have cost for both waiting and sampling, and they want to minimize their own expected total cost. We study the supermarket game in a mean field model that corresponds to the limit as $N$ converges to infinity in the sense that (i) for a fixed symmetric customer strategy, the joint equilibrium distribution of any fixed number of queues converges as $N \to \infty$ to a product distribution determined by the mean field model and (ii) a Nash equilibrium for the mean field model is an $\epsilon$-Nash equilibrium for the finite $N$ model with $N$ sufficiently large. It is shown that there always exists a Nash equilibrium for $\lambda <1$ and the Nash equilibrium is unique with homogeneous waiting cost for $\lambda^2 \le 1/2$. Furthermore, we find that the action of sampling more queues by some customers has a positive externality on the other customers in the mean field model, but can have a negative externality for finite $N$.
1202.2111
Curves on torus layers and coding for continuous alphabet sources
cs.IT math.DG math.IT
In this paper we consider the problem of transmitting a continuous alphabet discrete-time source over an AWGN channel. The design of good curves for this purpose relies on geometrical properties of spherical codes and projections of $N$-dimensional lattices. We propose a constructive scheme based on a set of curves on the surface of a 2N-dimensional sphere and present comparisons with some previous works.
1202.2112
Predicting Contextual Sequences via Submodular Function Maximization
cs.AI cs.LG cs.RO
Sequence optimization, where the items in a list are ordered to maximize some reward has many applications such as web advertisement placement, search, and control libraries in robotics. Previous work in sequence optimization produces a static ordering that does not take any features of the item or context of the problem into account. In this work, we propose a general approach to order the items within the sequence based on the context (e.g., perceptual information, environment description, and goals). We take a simple, efficient, reduction-based approach where the choice and order of the items is established by repeatedly learning simple classifiers or regressors for each "slot" in the sequence. Our approach leverages recent work on submodular function maximization to provide a formal regret reduction from submodular sequence optimization to simple cost-sensitive prediction. We apply our contextual sequence prediction algorithm to optimize control libraries and demonstrate results on two robotics problems: manipulator trajectory prediction and mobile robot path planning.
1202.2113
Decentralized Delay Optimal Control for Interference Networks with Limited Renewable Energy Storage
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider delay minimization for interference networks with renewable energy source, where the transmission power of a node comes from both the conventional utility power (AC power) and the renewable energy source. We assume the transmission power of each node is a function of the local channel state, local data queue state and local energy queue state only. In turn, we consider two delay optimization formulations, namely the decentralized partially observable Markov decision process (DEC-POMDP) and Non-cooperative partially observable stochastic game (POSG). In DEC-POMDP formulation, we derive a decentralized online learning algorithm to determine the control actions and Lagrangian multipliers (LMs) simultaneously, based on the policy gradient approach. Under some mild technical conditions, the proposed decentralized policy gradient algorithm converges almost surely to a local optimal solution. On the other hand, in the non-cooperative POSG formulation, the transmitter nodes are non-cooperative. We extend the decentralized policy gradient solution and establish the technical proof for almost-sure convergence of the learning algorithms. In both cases, the solutions are very robust to model variations. Finally, the delay performance of the proposed solutions are compared with conventional baseline schemes for interference networks and it is illustrated that substantial delay performance gain and energy savings can be achieved.
1202.2143
Active Bayesian Optimization: Minimizing Minimizer Entropy
stat.ME cs.LG stat.ML
The ultimate goal of optimization is to find the minimizer of a target function.However, typical criteria for active optimization often ignore the uncertainty about the minimizer. We propose a novel criterion for global optimization and an associated sequential active learning strategy using Gaussian processes.Our criterion is the reduction of uncertainty in the posterior distribution of the function minimizer. It can also flexibly incorporate multiple global minimizers. We implement a tractable approximation of the criterion and demonstrate that it obtains the global minimizer accurately compared to conventional Bayesian optimization criteria.
1202.2160
Scene Parsing with Multiscale Feature Learning, Purity Trees, and Optimal Covers
cs.CV cs.LG
Scene parsing, or semantic segmentation, consists in labeling each pixel in an image with the category of the object it belongs to. It is a challenging task that involves the simultaneous detection, segmentation and recognition of all the objects in the image. The scene parsing method proposed here starts by computing a tree of segments from a graph of pixel dissimilarities. Simultaneously, a set of dense feature vectors is computed which encodes regions of multiple sizes centered on each pixel. The feature extractor is a multiscale convolutional network trained from raw pixels. The feature vectors associated with the segments covered by each node in the tree are aggregated and fed to a classifier which produces an estimate of the distribution of object categories contained in the segment. A subset of tree nodes that cover the image are then selected so as to maximize the average "purity" of the class distributions, hence maximizing the overall likelihood that each segment will contain a single object. The convolutional network feature extractor is trained end-to-end from raw pixels, alleviating the need for engineered features. After training, the system is parameter free. The system yields record accuracies on the Stanford Background Dataset (8 classes), the Sift Flow Dataset (33 classes) and the Barcelona Dataset (170 classes) while being an order of magnitude faster than competing approaches, producing a 320 \times 240 image labeling in less than 1 second.
1202.2167
Abstract Representations and Frequent Pattern Discovery
cs.AI cs.IT math.IT
We discuss the frequent pattern mining problem in a general setting. From an analysis of abstract representations, summarization and frequent pattern mining, we arrive at a generalization of the problem. Then, we show how the problem can be cast into the powerful language of algorithmic information theory. This allows us to formulate a simple algorithm to mine for all frequent patterns.
1202.2175
On the Capacity Region of Cognitive Multiple Access over White Space Channels
cs.IT math.IT
Opportunistically sharing the white spaces, or the temporarily unoccupied spectrum licensed to the primary user (PU), is a practical way to improve the spectrum utilization. In this paper, we consider the fundamental problem of rate regions achievable for multiple secondary users (SUs) which send their information to a common receiver over such a white space channel. In particular, the PU activities are treated as on/off side information, which can be obtained causally or non-causally by the SUs. The system is then modeled as a multi-switch channel and its achievable rate regions are characterized in some scenarios. Explicit forms of outer and inner bounds of the rate regions are derived by assuming additional side information, and they are shown to be tight in some special cases. An optimal rate and power allocation scheme that maximizes the sum rate is also proposed. The numerical results reveal the impacts of side information, channel correlation and PU activity on the achievable rates, and also verify the effectiveness of our rate and power allocation scheme. Our work may shed some light on the fundamental limit and design tradeoffs in practical cognitive radio systems.
1202.2185
Temporal Logic Motion Control using Actor-Critic Methods
cs.RO cs.SY math.OC
In this paper, we consider the problem of deploying a robot from a specification given as a temporal logic statement about some properties satisfied by the regions of a large, partitioned environment. We assume that the robot has noisy sensors and actuators and model its motion through the regions of the environment as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). The robot control problem becomes finding the control policy maximizing the probability of satisfying the temporal logic task on the MDP. For a large environment, obtaining transition probabilities for each state-action pair, as well as solving the necessary optimization problem for the optimal policy are usually not computationally feasible. To address these issues, we propose an approximate dynamic programming framework based on a least-square temporal difference learning method of the actor-critic type. This framework operates on sample paths of the robot and optimizes a randomized control policy with respect to a small set of parameters. The transition probabilities are obtained only when needed. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations confirm that convergence of the parameters translates to an approximately optimal policy.
1202.2187
Museum: Multidimensional web page segment evaluation model
cs.IR
The evaluation of a web page with respect to a query is a vital task in the web information retrieval domain. This paper proposes the evaluation of a web page as a bottom-up process from the segment level to the page level. A model for evaluating the relevancy is proposed incorporating six different dimensions. An algorithm for evaluating the segments of a web page, using the above mentioned six dimensions is proposed. The benefits of fine-granining the evaluation process to the segment level instead of the page level are explored. The proposed model can be incorporated for various tasks like web page personalization, result re-ranking, mobile device page rendering etc.
1202.2209
Choosing Products in Social Networks
cs.SI cs.GT physics.soc-ph
We study the consequences of adopting products by agents who form a social network. To this end we use the threshold model introduced in Apt and Markakis, arXiv:1105.2434, in which the nodes influenced by their neighbours can adopt one out of several alternatives, and associate with such each social network a strategic game between the agents. The possibility of not choosing any product results in two special types of (pure) Nash equilibria. We show that such games may have no Nash equilibrium and that determining the existence of a Nash equilibrium, also of a special type, is NP-complete. The situation changes when the underlying graph of the social network is a DAG, a simple cycle, or has no source nodes. For these three classes we determine the complexity of establishing whether a (special type of) Nash equilibrium exists. We also clarify for these categories of games the status and the complexity of the finite improvement property (FIP). Further, we introduce a new property of the uniform FIP which is satisfied when the underlying graph is a simple cycle, but determining it is co-NP-hard in the general case and also when the underlying graph has no source nodes. The latter complexity results also hold for verifying the property of being a weakly acyclic game.
1202.2215
Topic Diffusion and Emergence of Virality in Social Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We propose a stochastic model for the diffusion of topics entering a social network modeled by a Watts-Strogatz graph. Our model sets into play an implicit competition between these topics as they vie for the attention of users in the network. The dynamics of our model are based on notions taken from real-world OSNs like Twitter where users either adopt an exogenous topic or copy topics from their neighbors leading to endogenous propagation. When instantiated correctly, the model achieves a viral regime where a few topics garner unusually good response from the network, closely mimicking the behavior of real-world OSNs. Our main contribution is our description of how clusters of proximate users that have spoken on the topic merge to form a large giant component making a topic go viral. This demonstrates that it is not weak ties but actually strong ties that play a major part in virality. We further validate our model and our hypotheses about its behavior by comparing our simulation results with the results of a measurement study conducted on real data taken from Twitter.
1202.2223
Performance Analysis of $\ell_1$-synthesis with Coherent Frames
cs.IT math.IT
Signals with sparse frame representations comprise a much more realistic model of nature than that with orthonomal bases. Studies about the signal recovery associated with such sparsity models have been one of major focuses in compressed sensing. In such settings, one important and widely used signal recovery approach is known as $\ell_1$-synthesis (or Basis Pursuit). We present in this article a more effective performance analysis (than what are available) of this approach in which the dictionary $\Dbf$ may be highly, and even perfectly correlated. Under suitable conditions on the sensing matrix $\Phibf$, an error bound of the recovered signal $\hat{\fbf}$ (by the $\ell_1$-synthesis method) is established. Such an error bound is governed by the decaying property of $\tilde{\Dbf}_{\text{o}}^*\fbf$, where $\fbf$ is the true signal and $\tilde{\Dbf}_{\text{o}}$ denotes the optimal dual frame of $\Dbf$ in the sense that $\|\tilde{\Dbf}_{\text{o}}^*\hat{\fbf}\|_1$ produces the smallest $\|\tilde{\Dbf}^*\tilde{\fbf}\|_1$ in value among all dual frames $\tilde{\Dbf}$ of $\Dbf$ and all feasible signals $\tilde{\fbf}$. This new performance analysis departs from the usual description of the combo $\Phibf\Dbf$, and places the description on $\Phibf$. Examples are demonstrated to show that when the usual analysis fails to explain the working performance of the synthesis approach, the newly established results do.
1202.2231
Achieving Global Optimality for Weighted Sum-Rate Maximization in the K-User Gaussian Interference Channel with Multiple Antennas
cs.IT math.IT
Characterizing the global maximum of weighted sum-rate (WSR) for the K-user Gaussian interference channel (GIC), with the interference treated as Gaussian noise, is a key problem in wireless communication. However, due to the users' mutual interference, this problem is in general non-convex and thus cannot be solved directly by conventional convex optimization techniques. In this paper, by jointly utilizing the monotonic optimization and rate profile techniques, we develop a new framework to obtain the globally optimal power control and/or beamforming solutions to the WSR maximization problems for the GICs with single-antenna transmitters and single-antenna receivers (SISO), single-antenna transmitters and multi-antenna receivers (SIMO), or multi-antenna transmitters and single-antenna receivers (MISO). Different from prior work, this paper proposes to maximize the WSR in the achievable rate region of the GIC directly by exploiting the facts that the achievable rate region is a "normal" set and the users' WSR is a "strictly increasing" function over the rate region. Consequently, the WSR maximization is shown to be in the form of monotonic optimization over a normal set and thus can be solved globally optimally by the existing outer polyblock approximation algorithm. However, an essential step in the algorithm hinges on how to efficiently characterize the intersection point on the Pareto boundary of the achievable rate region with any prescribed "rate profile" vector. This paper shows that such a problem can be transformed into a sequence of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) feasibility problems, which can be solved efficiently by existing techniques. Numerical results validate that the proposed algorithms can achieve the global WSR maximum for the SISO, SIMO or MISO GIC.
1202.2249
Supervised Learning in Multilayer Spiking Neural Networks
cs.NE q-bio.NC
The current article introduces a supervised learning algorithm for multilayer spiking neural networks. The algorithm presented here overcomes some limitations of existing learning algorithms as it can be applied to neurons firing multiple spikes and it can in principle be applied to any linearisable neuron model. The algorithm is applied successfully to various benchmarks, such as the XOR problem and the Iris data set, as well as complex classifications problems. The simulations also show the flexibility of this supervised learning algorithm which permits different encodings of the spike timing patterns, including precise spike trains encoding.
1202.2251
Hierarchies of Local-Optimality Characterizations in Decoding of Tanner Codes
cs.IT math.IT
Recent developments in decoding of Tanner codes with maximum-likelihood certificates are based on a sufficient condition called local-optimality. We define hierarchies of locally-optimal codewords with respect to two parameters. One parameter is related to the minimum distance of the local codes in Tanner codes. The second parameter is related to the finite number of iterations used in iterative decoding. We show that these hierarchies satisfy inclusion properties as these parameters are increased. In particular, this implies that a codeword that is decoded with a certificate using an iterative decoder after $h$ iterations is decoded with a certificate after $k\cdot h$ iterations, for every integer $k$.
1202.2261
Multi-robot coverage to locate fixed targets using formation structures
cs.RO
This paper develops an algorithm that guides a multi-robot system in an unknown environment in search of fixed targets. The area to be scanned contains an unknown number of convex obstacles of unknown size and shape. The algorithm covers the entire free space in a sweeping fashion and as such relies on the use of robot formations. The geometry of the robot group is a lateral line formation, which is allowed to split and rejoin when passing obstacles. It is our main goal to exploit this formation structure in order to reduce robot resources to a minimum. Each robot has a limited and finite amount of memory available. No information of the topography is recorded. Communication between two robots is only possible up to a maximum inter-robot distance, and if the line-of-sight between both robots is not obstructed. Broadcasting capabilities and indirect communication are not allowed. Supervisory control is prohibited. The number of robots equipped with GPS is kept as small as possible. Applications of the algorithm are mine field clearance, search-and-rescue missions, and intercept missions. Simulations are included and made available on the internet, demonstrating the flexibility of the algorithm.
1202.2283
Quantum Cournot equilibrium for the Hotelling-Smithies model of product choice
quant-ph cs.IT math-ph math.IT math.MP
This paper demonstrates the quantization of a spatial Cournot duopoly model with product choice, a two stage game focusing on non-cooperation in locations and quantities. With quantization, the players can access a continuous set of strategies, using continuous variable quantum mechanical approach. The presence of quantum entanglement in the initial state identifies a quantity equilibrium for every location pair choice with any transport cost. Also higher profit is obtained by the firms at Nash equilibrium. Adoption of quantum strategies rewards us by the existence of a larger quantum strategic space at equilibrium.
1202.2293
Remarks on Category-Based Routing in Social Networks
cs.SI cs.DC cs.DM physics.soc-ph
It is well known that individuals can route messages on short paths through social networks, given only simple information about the target and using only local knowledge about the topology. Sociologists conjecture that people find routes greedily by passing the message to an acquaintance that has more in common with the target than themselves, e.g. if a dentist in Saarbr\"ucken wants to send a message to a specific lawyer in Munich, he may forward it to someone who is a lawyer and/or lives in Munich. Modelling this setting, Eppstein et al. introduced the notion of category-based routing. The goal is to assign a set of categories to each node of a graph such that greedy routing is possible. By proving bounds on the number of categories a node has to be in we can argue about the plausibility of the underlying sociological model. In this paper we substantially improve the upper bounds introduced by Eppstein et al. and prove new lower bounds.
1202.2319
Detection Performance of M-ary Relay Trees with Non-binary Message Alphabets
cs.IT math.IT
We study the detection performance of $M$-ary relay trees, where only the leaves of the tree represent sensors making measurements. The root of the tree represents the fusion center which makes an overall detection decision. Each of the other nodes is a relay node which aggregates $M$ messages sent by its child nodes into a new compressed message and sends the message to its parent node. Building on previous work on the detection performance of $M$-ary relay trees with binary messages, in this paper we study the case of non-binary relay message alphabets. We characterize the exponent of the error probability with respect to the message alphabet size $\mathcal D$, showing how the detection performance increases with $\mathcal D$. Our method involves reducing a tree with non-binary relay messages into an equivalent higher-degree tree with only binary messages.
1202.2335
Getting It All from the Crowd
cs.DB
Hybrid human/computer systems promise to greatly expand the usefulness of query processing by incorporating the crowd for data gathering and other tasks. Such systems raise many database system implementation questions. Perhaps most fundamental is that the closed world assumption underlying relational query semantics does not hold in such systems. As a consequence the meaning of even simple queries can be called into question. Furthermore query progress monitoring becomes difficult due to non-uniformities in the arrival of crowdsourced data and peculiarities of how people work in crowdsourcing systems. To address these issues, we develop statistical tools that enable users and systems developers to reason about tradeoffs between time/cost and completeness. These tools can also help drive query execution and crowdsourcing strategies. We evaluate our techniques using experiments on a popular crowdsourcing platform.
1202.2350
Streaming an image through the eye: The retina seen as a dithered scalable image coder
cs.CV cs.NE
We propose the design of an original scalable image coder/decoder that is inspired from the mammalians retina. Our coder accounts for the time-dependent and also nondeterministic behavior of the actual retina. The present work brings two main contributions: As a first step, (i) we design a deterministic image coder mimicking most of the retinal processing stages and then (ii) we introduce a retinal noise in the coding process, that we model here as a dither signal, to gain interesting perceptual features. Regarding our first contribution, our main source of inspiration will be the biologically plausible model of the retina called Virtual Retina. The main novelty of this coder is to show that the time-dependent behavior of the retina cells could ensure, in an implicit way, scalability and bit allocation. Regarding our second contribution, we reconsider the inner layers of the retina. We emit a possible interpretation for the non-determinism observed by neurophysiologists in their output. For this sake, we model the retinal noise that occurs in these layers by a dither signal. The dithering process that we propose adds several interesting features to our image coder. The dither noise whitens the reconstruction error and decorrelates it from the input stimuli. Furthermore, integrating the dither noise in our coder allows a faster recognition of the fine details of the image during the decoding process. Our present paper goal is twofold. First, we aim at mimicking as closely as possible the retina for the design of a novel image coder while keeping encouraging performances. Second, we bring a new insight concerning the non-deterministic behavior of the retina.
1202.2368
An evaluation of local shape descriptors for 3D shape retrieval
cs.CV cs.CG cs.DL cs.IR cs.MM
As the usage of 3D models increases, so does the importance of developing accurate 3D shape retrieval algorithms. A common approach is to calculate a shape descriptor for each object, which can then be compared to determine two objects' similarity. However, these descriptors are often evaluated independently and on different datasets, making them difficult to compare. Using the SHREC 2011 Shape Retrieval Contest of Non-rigid 3D Watertight Meshes dataset, we systematically evaluate a collection of local shape descriptors. We apply each descriptor to the bag-of-words paradigm and assess the effects of varying the dictionary's size and the number of sample points. In addition, several salient point detection methods are used to choose sample points; these methods are compared to each other and to random selection. Finally, information from two local descriptors is combined in two ways and changes in performance are investigated. This paper presents results of these experiment
1202.2369
The Groupon Effect on Yelp Ratings: A Root Cause Analysis
cs.SI
Daily deals sites such as Groupon offer deeply discounted goods and services to tens of millions of customers through geographically targeted daily e-mail marketing campaigns. In our prior work we observed that a negative side effect for merchants using Groupons is that, on average, their Yelp ratings decline significantly. However, this previous work was essentially observational, rather than explanatory. In this work, we rigorously consider and evaluate various hypotheses about underlying consumer and merchant behavior in order to understand this phenomenon, which we dub the Groupon effect. We use statistical analysis and mathematical modeling, leveraging a dataset we collected spanning tens of thousands of daily deals and over 7 million Yelp reviews. In particular, we investigate hypotheses such as whether Groupon subscribers are more critical than their peers, or whether some fraction of Groupon merchants provide significantly worse service to customers using Groupons. We suggest an additional novel hypothesis: reviews from Groupon subscribers are lower on average because such reviews correspond to real, unbiased customers, while the body of reviews on Yelp contain some fraction of reviews from biased or even potentially fake sources. Although we focus on a specific question, our work provides broad insights into both consumer and merchant behavior within the daily deals marketplace.
1202.2393
Statistical reliability and path diversity based PageRank algorithm improvements
cs.IR cs.DM
In this paper we present new improvement ideas of the original PageRank algorithm. The first idea is to introduce an evaluation of the statistical reliability of the ranking score of each node based on the local graph property and the second one is to introduce the notion of the path diversity. The path diversity can be exploited to dynamically modify the increment value of each node in the random surfer model or to dynamically adapt the damping factor. We illustrate the impact of such modifications through examples and simple simulations.
1202.2408
Spectral Estimation from Undersampled Data: Correlogram and Model-Based Least Squares
math.ST cs.IT math.IT stat.TH
This paper studies two spectrum estimation methods for the case that the samples are obtained at a rate lower than the Nyquist rate. The first method is the correlogram method for undersampled data. The algorithm partitions the spectrum into a number of segments and estimates the average power within each spectral segment. We derive the bias and the variance of the spectrum estimator, and show that there is a tradeoff between the accuracy of the estimation and the frequency resolution. The asymptotic behavior of the estimator is also investigated, and it is proved that this spectrum estimator is consistent. A new algorithm for reconstructing signals with sparse spectrum from noisy compressive measurements is also introduced. Such model-based algorithm takes the signal structure into account for estimating the unknown parameters which are the frequencies and the amplitudes of linearly combined sinusoidal signals. A high-resolution spectral estimation method is used to recover the frequencies of the signal elements, while the amplitudes of the signal components are estimated by minimizing the squared norm of the compressed estimation error using the least squares technique. The Cramer-Rao bound for the given system model is also derived. It is shown that the proposed algorithm approaches the bound at high signal to noise ratios.
1202.2412
Sum-Rate Maximization in Two-Way AF MIMO Relaying: Polynomial Time Solutions to a Class of DC Programming Problems
cs.IT math.IT math.OC
Sum-rate maximization in two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relaying belongs to the class of difference-of-convex functions (DC) programming problems. DC programming problems occur as well in other signal processing applications and are typically solved using different modifications of the branch-and-bound method. This method, however, does not have any polynomial time complexity guarantees. In this paper, we show that a class of DC programming problems, to which the sum-rate maximization in two-way MIMO relaying belongs, can be solved very efficiently in polynomial time, and develop two algorithms. The objective function of the problem is represented as a product of quadratic ratios and parameterized so that its convex part (versus the concave part) contains only one (or two) optimization variables. One of the algorithms is called POlynomial-Time DC (POTDC) and is based on semi-definite programming (SDP) relaxation, linearization, and an iterative search over a single parameter. The other algorithm is called RAte-maximization via Generalized EigenvectorS (RAGES) and is based on the generalized eigenvectors method and an iterative search over two (or one, in its approximate version) optimization variables. We also derive an upper-bound for the optimal values of the corresponding optimization problem and show by simulations that this upper-bound can be achieved by both algorithms. The proposed methods for maximizing the sum-rate in the two-way AF MIMO relaying system are shown to be superior to other state-of-the-art algorithms.
1202.2414
Optimal Linear Codes with a Local-Error-Correction Property
cs.IT math.IT
Motivated by applications to distributed storage, Gopalan \textit{et al} recently introduced the interesting notion of information-symbol locality in a linear code. By this it is meant that each message symbol appears in a parity-check equation associated with small Hamming weight, thereby enabling recovery of the message symbol by examining a small number of other code symbols. This notion is expanded to the case when all code symbols, not just the message symbols, are covered by such "local" parity. In this paper, we extend the results of Gopalan et. al. so as to permit recovery of an erased code symbol even in the presence of errors in local parity symbols. We present tight bounds on the minimum distance of such codes and exhibit codes that are optimal with respect to the local error-correction property. As a corollary, we obtain an upper bound on the minimum distance of a concatenated code.
1202.2419
A High Order Sliding Mode Control with PID Sliding Surface: Simulation on a Torpedo
cs.SY
Position and speed control of the torpedo present a real problem for the actuators because of the high level of the system non linearity and because of the external disturbances. The non linear systems control is based on several different approaches, among it the sliding mode control. The sliding mode control has proved its effectiveness through the different studies. The advantage that makes such an important approach is its robustness versus the disturbances and the model uncertainties. However, this approach implies a disadvantage which is the chattering phenomenon caused by the discontinuous part of this control and which can have a harmful effect on the actuators. This paper deals with the basic concepts, mathematics, and design aspects of a control for nonlinear systems that make the chattering effect lower. As solution to this problem we will adopt as a starting point the high order sliding mode approaches then the PID sliding surface. Simulation results show that this control strategy can attain excellent control performance with no chattering problem.
1202.2449
Efficient Web-based Facial Recognition System Employing 2DHOG
cs.CV cs.NI
In this paper, a system for facial recognition to identify missing and found people in Hajj and Umrah is described as a web portal. Explicitly, we present a novel algorithm for recognition and classifications of facial images based on applying 2DPCA to a 2D representation of the Histogram of oriented gradients (2D-HOG) which maintains the spatial relation between pixels of the input images. This algorithm allows a compact representation of the images which reduces the computational complexity and the storage requirments, while maintaining the highest reported recognition accuracy. This promotes this method for usage with very large datasets. Large dataset was collected for people in Hajj. Experimental results employing ORL, UMIST, JAFFE, and HAJJ datasets confirm these excellent properties.
1202.2461
How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations
cs.SI cs.DL physics.soc-ph
We analyze the online response to the preprint publication of a cohort of 4,606 scientific articles submitted to the preprint database arXiv.org between October 2010 and May 2011. We study three forms of responses to these preprints: downloads on the arXiv.org site, mentions on the social media site Twitter, and early citations in the scholarly record. We perform two analyses. First, we analyze the delay and time span of article downloads and Twitter mentions following submission, to understand the temporal configuration of these reactions and whether one precedes or follows the other. Second, we run regression and correlation tests to investigate the relationship between Twitter mentions, arXiv downloads and article citations. We find that Twitter mentions and arXiv downloads of scholarly articles follow two distinct temporal patterns of activity, with Twitter mentions having shorter delays and narrower time spans than arXiv downloads. We also find that the volume of Twitter mentions is statistically correlated with arXiv downloads and early citations just months after the publication of a preprint, with a possible bias that favors highly mentioned articles.
1202.2465
Towards Linear Time Overlapping Community Detection in Social Networks
cs.SI cs.CY cs.DS physics.soc-ph
Membership diversity is a characteristic aspect of social networks in which a person may belong to more than one social group. For this reason, discovering overlapping structures is necessary for realistic social analysis. In this paper, we present a fast algorithm1, called SLPA, for overlapping community detection in large-scale networks. SLPA spreads labels according to dynamic interaction rules. It can be applied to both unipartite and bipartite networks. It is also able to uncover overlapping nested hierarchy. The time complexity of SLPA scales linearly with the number of edges in the network. Experiments in both synthetic and real- world networks show that SLPA has an excellent performance in identifying both node and community level overlapping structures.
1202.2503
Experimental study of the impact of historical information in human coordination
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We perform laboratory experiments to elucidate the role of historical information in games involving human coordination. Our approach follows prior work studying human network coordination using the task of graph coloring. We first motivate this research by showing empirical evidence that the resolution of coloring conflicts is dependent upon the recent local history of that conflict. We also conduct two tailored experiments to manipulate the game history that can be used by humans in order to determine (i) whether humans use historical information, and (ii) whether they use it effectively. In the first variant, during the course of each coloring task, the network positions of the subjects were periodically swapped while maintaining the global coloring state of the network. In the second variant, participants completed a series of 2-coloring tasks, some of which were restarts from checkpoints of previous tasks. Thus, the participants restarted the coloring task from a point in the middle of a previous task without knowledge of the history that led to that point. We report on the game dynamics and average completion times for the diverse graph topologies used in the swap and restart experiments.
1202.2518
Segmenting DNA sequence into `words'
q-bio.GN cs.CL
This paper presents a novel method to segment/decode DNA sequences based on n-grams statistical language model. Firstly, we find the length of most DNA 'words' is 12 to 15 bps by analyzing the genomes of 12 model species. Then we design an unsupervised probability based approach to segment the DNA sequences. The benchmark of segmenting method is also proposed.
1202.2523
Evolutionary Computation in Astronomy and Astrophysics: A Review
cs.AI astro-ph.IM cs.NE
In general Evolutionary Computation (EC) includes a number of optimization methods inspired by biological mechanisms of evolution. The methods catalogued in this area use the Darwinian principles of life evolution to produce algorithms that returns high quality solutions to hard-to-solve optimization problems. The main strength of EC is precisely that they provide good solutions even if the computational resources (e.g., running time) are limited. Astronomy and Astrophysics are two fields that often require optimizing problems of high complexity or analyzing a huge amount of data and the so-called complete optimization methods are inherently limited by the size of the problem/data. For instance, reliable analysis of large amounts of data is central to modern astrophysics and astronomical sciences in general. EC techniques perform well where other optimization methods are inherently limited (as complete methods applied to NP-hard problems), and in the last ten years, numerous proposals have come up that apply with greater or lesser success methodologies of evolutional computation to common engineering problems. Some of these problems, such as the estimation of non-lineal parameters, the development of automatic learning techniques, the implementation of control systems, or the resolution of multi-objective optimization problems, have had (and have) a special repercussion in the fields. For these reasons EC emerges as a feasible alternative for traditional methods. In this paper, we discuss some promising applications in this direction and a number of recent works in this area; the paper also includes a general description of EC to provide a global perspective to the reader and gives some guidelines of application of EC techniques for future research
1202.2525
Subsampling at Information Theoretically Optimal Rates
cs.IT math.IT math.ST stat.TH
We study the problem of sampling a random signal with sparse support in frequency domain. Shannon famously considered a scheme that instantaneously samples the signal at equispaced times. He proved that the signal can be reconstructed as long as the sampling rate exceeds twice the bandwidth (Nyquist rate). Cand\`es, Romberg, Tao introduced a scheme that acquires instantaneous samples of the signal at random times. They proved that the signal can be uniquely and efficiently reconstructed, provided the sampling rate exceeds the frequency support of the signal, times logarithmic factors. In this paper we consider a probabilistic model for the signal, and a sampling scheme inspired by the idea of spatial coupling in coding theory. Namely, we propose to acquire non-instantaneous samples at random times. Mathematically, this is implemented by acquiring a small random subset of Gabor coefficients. We show empirically that this scheme achieves correct reconstruction as soon as the sampling rate exceeds the frequency support of the signal, thus reaching the information theoretic limit.
1202.2528
Using Covariance Matrices as Feature Descriptors for Vehicle Detection from a Fixed Camera
cs.CV
A method is developed to distinguish between cars and trucks present in a video feed of a highway. The method builds upon previously done work using covariance matrices as an accurate descriptor for regions. Background subtraction and other similar proven image processing techniques are used to identify the regions where the vehicles are most likely to be, and a distance metric comparing the vehicle inside the region to a fixed library of vehicles is used to determine the class of vehicle.
1202.2536
Message passing for quantified Boolean formulas
cs.AI cond-mat.dis-nn
We introduce two types of message passing algorithms for quantified Boolean formulas (QBF). The first type is a message passing based heuristics that can prove unsatisfiability of the QBF by assigning the universal variables in such a way that the remaining formula is unsatisfiable. In the second type, we use message passing to guide branching heuristics of a Davis-Putnam Logemann-Loveland (DPLL) complete solver. Numerical experiments show that on random QBFs our branching heuristics gives robust exponential efficiency gain with respect to the state-of-art solvers. We also manage to solve some previously unsolved benchmarks from the QBFLIB library. Apart from this our study sheds light on using message passing in small systems and as subroutines in complete solvers.
1202.2561
On the Diversity Gain Region of the Z-interference Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this work, we analyze the diversity gain region (DGR) of the single-antenna Rayleigh fading Z-Interference channel (ZIC). More specifically, we characterize the achievable DGR of the fixed-power split Han-Kobayashi (HK) approach under these assumptions. Our characterization comes in a closed form and demonstrates that the HK scheme with only a common message is a singular case, which achieves the best DGR among all HK schemes for certain multiplexing gains. Finally, we show that generalized time sharing, with variable rate and power assignments for the common and private messages, does not improve the achievable DGR.
1202.2564
A better Beta for the H measure of classification performance
stat.ME cs.CV stat.ML
The area under the ROC curve is widely used as a measure of performance of classification rules. However, it has recently been shown that the measure is fundamentally incoherent, in the sense that it treats the relative severities of misclassifications differently when different classifiers are used. To overcome this, Hand (2009) proposed the $H$ measure, which allows a given researcher to fix the distribution of relative severities to a classifier-independent setting on a given problem. This note extends the discussion, and proposes a modified standard distribution for the $H$ measure, which better matches the requirements of researchers, in particular those faced with heavily unbalanced datasets, the $Beta(\pi_1+1,\pi_0+1)$ distribution. [Preprint submitted at Pattern Recognition Letters]
1202.2576
New Results on the Sum of Gamma Random Variates With Application to the Performance of Wireless Communication Systems over Nakagami-m Fading Channels
cs.IT math.IT math.PR math.ST stat.TH
The probability density function (PDF) and cumulative distribution function of the sum of L independent but not necessarily identically distributed Gamma variates, applicable to the output statistics of maximal ratio combining (MRC) receiver operating over Nakagami-m fading channels or in other words to the statistical analysis of the scenario where the sum of squared Nakagami-m distributions are user-of-interest, is presented in closed-form in terms of well-known Meijer's G function and easily computable Fox's H-bar function for integer valued and non-integer valued m fading parameters. Further analysis, particularly on bit error rate via a PDF-based approach is also offered in closed form in terms of Meijer's G function and Fox's H-bar function for integer valued fading parameters, and extended Fox's H-bar function (H-hat) for non-integer valued fading parameters. Our proposed results complement previous known results that are either expressed in terms of infinite sums, nested sums, or higher order derivatives of the fading parameter m.
1202.2577
Citizen Science: Contributions to Astronomy Research
astro-ph.IM cs.AI
The contributions of everyday individuals to significant research has grown dramatically beyond the early days of classical birdwatching and endeavors of amateurs of the 19th century. Now people who are casually interested in science can participate directly in research covering diverse scientific fields. Regarding astronomy, volunteers, either as individuals or as networks of people, are involved in a variety of types of studies. Citizen Science is intuitive, engaging, yet necessarily robust in its adoption of sci-entific principles and methods. Herein, we discuss Citizen Science, focusing on fully participatory projects such as Zooniverse (by several of the au-thors CL, AS, LF, SB), with mention of other programs. In particular, we make the case that citizen science (CS) can be an important aspect of the scientific data analysis pipelines provided to scientists by observatories.
1202.2586
Gossip-based Information Spreading in Mobile Networks
cs.SI cs.NI
Mobile networks receive increasing research interest recently due to their increasingly wide applications in various areas; mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) and Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) are two prominent examples. Mobility introduces challenges as well as opportunities: it is known to improve the network throughput as shown in [1]. In this paper, we analyze the effect of mobility on the information spreading based on gossip algorithms. Our contributions are twofold. Firstly, we propose a new performance metric, mobile conductance, which allows us to separate the details of mobility models from the study of mobile spreading time. Secondly, we explore the mobile conductances of several popular mobility models, and offer insights on the corresponding results. Large scale network simulation is conducted to verify our analysis.
1202.2591
Database queries and constraints via lifting problems
math.CT cs.DB math.AT
Previous work has demonstrated that categories are useful and expressive models for databases. In the present paper we build on that model, showing that certain queries and constraints correspond to lifting problems, as found in modern approaches to algebraic topology. In our formulation, each so-called SPARQL graph pattern query corresponds to a category-theoretic lifting problem, whereby the set of solutions to the query is precisely the set of lifts. We interpret constraints within the same formalism and then investigate some basic properties of queries and constraints. In particular, to any database $\pi$ we can associate a certain derived database $\Qry(\pi)$ of queries on $\pi$. As an application, we explain how giving users access to certain parts of $\Qry(\pi)$, rather than direct access to $\pi$, improves ones ability to manage the impact of schema evolution.
1202.2614
Semantic snippet construction for search engine results based on segment evaluation
cs.IR
The result listing from search engines includes a link and a snippet from the web page for each result item. The snippet in the result listing plays a vital role in assisting the user to click on it. This paper proposes a novel approach to construct the snippets based on a semantic evaluation of the segments in the page. The target segment(s) is/are identified by applying a model to evaluate segments present in the page and selecting the segments with top scores. The proposed model makes the user judgment to click on a result item easier since the snippet is constructed semantically after a critical evaluation based on multiple factors. A prototype implementation of the proposed model confirms the empirical validation.
1202.2615
Live-marker: A personalized web page content marking tool
cs.IR
The tremendous amount of increase in the quantity of information resources available on the web has made the total time that the user spends on a single page very minimal. Users revisiting the same page would be able to fetch the required information much faster if the information that they consumed during the previous visit(s) gets presented to them with a special style. This paper proposes a model which empowers the users to mark the content interesting to them, so that it can be identified easily during successive visits. In addition to the explicit marking by the users, the model facilitates implicit marking based on the user preferences. The prototype implementation based on proposed model validates the model's efficiency.
1202.2617
Segmentation Based Approach to Dynamic Page Construction from Search Engine Results
cs.IR
The results rendered by the search engines are mostly a linear snippet list. With the prolific increase in the dynamism of web pages there is a need for enhanced result lists from search engines in order to cope-up with the expectations of the users. This paper proposes a model for dynamic construction of a resultant page from various results fetched by the search engine, based on the web page segmentation approach. With the incorporation of personalization through user profile during the candidate segment selection, the enriched resultant page is constructed. The benefits of this approach include instant, one-shot navigation to relevant portions from various result items, in contrast to a linear page-by-page visit approach. The experiments conducted on the prototype model with various levels of users, quantifies the improvements in terms of amount of relevant information fetched.
1202.2619
We.I.Pe: Web Identification of People using e-mail ID
cs.IR
With the phenomenal growth of content in the World Wide Web, the diversity of user supplied queries have become vivid. Searching for people on the web has become an important type of search activity in the web search engines. This paper proposes a model named "We.I.Pe" to identify people on the World Wide Web using e-mail Id as the primary input. The approach followed in this research work provides the collected information, based on the user supplied e-mail id, in an easier to navigate manner. The grouping of collected information based on various sources makes the result visualization process more effective. The proposed model is validated by a prototype implementation. Experiments conducted on the prototype implementation provide encouraging results
1202.2622
A Model for Web Page Usage Mining Based on Segmentation
cs.IR
The web page usage mining plays a vital role in enriching the page's content and structure based on the feedbacks received from the user's interactions with the page. This paper proposes a model for micro-managing the tracking activities by fine-tuning the mining from the page level to the segment level. The proposed model enables the web-master to identify the segments which receives more focus from users comparing with others. The segment level analytics of user actions provides an important metric to analyse the factors which facilitate the increase in traffic for the page. The empirical validation of the model is performed through prototype implementation.
1202.2684
Core-Periphery Structure in Networks
cs.SI cond-mat.stat-mech physics.soc-ph
Intermediate-scale (or `meso-scale') structures in networks have received considerable attention, as the algorithmic detection of such structures makes it possible to discover network features that are not apparent either at the local scale of nodes and edges or at the global scale of summary statistics. Numerous types of meso-scale structures can occur in networks, but investigations of such features have focused predominantly on the identification and study of community structure. In this paper, we develop a new method to investigate the meso-scale feature known as core-periphery structure, which entails identifying densely-connected core nodes and sparsely-connected periphery nodes. In contrast to communities, the nodes in a core are also reasonably well-connected to those in the periphery. Our new method of computing core-periphery structure can identify multiple cores in a network and takes different possible cores into account. We illustrate the differences between our method and several existing methods for identifying which nodes belong to a core, and we use our technique to examine core-periphery structure in examples of friendship, collaboration, transportation, and voting networks.
1202.2687
Worst-Case Additive Noise in Wireless Networks
cs.IT math.IT
A classical result in Information Theory states that the Gaussian noise is the worst-case additive noise in point-to-point channels, meaning that, for a fixed noise variance, the Gaussian noise minimizes the capacity of an additive noise channel. In this paper, we significantly generalize this result and show that the Gaussian noise is also the worst-case additive noise in wireless networks with additive noises that are independent from the transmit signals. More specifically, we show that, if we fix the noise variance at each node, then the capacity region with Gaussian noises is a subset of the capacity region with any other set of noise distributions. We prove this result by showing that a coding scheme that achieves a given set of rates on a network with Gaussian additive noises can be used to construct a coding scheme that achieves the same set of rates on a network that has the same topology and traffic demands, but with non-Gaussian additive noises.
1202.2703
Craniofacial reconstruction as a prediction problem using a Latent Root Regression model
cs.LG q-bio.TO
In this paper, we present a computer-assisted method for facial reconstruction. This method provides an estimation of the facial shape associated with unidentified skeletal remains. Current computer-assisted methods using a statistical framework rely on a common set of extracted points located on the bone and soft-tissue surfaces. Most of the facial reconstruction methods then consist of predicting the position of the soft-tissue surface points, when the positions of the bone surface points are known. We propose to use Latent Root Regression for prediction. The results obtained are then compared to those given by Principal Components Analysis linear models. In conjunction, we have evaluated the influence of the number of skull landmarks used. Anatomical skull landmarks are completed iteratively by points located upon geodesics which link these anatomical landmarks, thus enabling us to artificially increase the number of skull points. Facial points are obtained using a mesh-matching algorithm between a common reference mesh and individual soft-tissue surface meshes. The proposed method is validated in term of accuracy, based on a leave-one-out cross-validation test applied to a homogeneous database. Accuracy measures are obtained by computing the distance between the original face surface and its reconstruction. Finally, these results are discussed referring to current computer-assisted reconstruction facial techniques.