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1203.0594
Learning DNF Expressions from Fourier Spectrum
cs.LG cs.CC cs.DS
Since its introduction by Valiant in 1984, PAC learning of DNF expressions remains one of the central problems in learning theory. We consider this problem in the setting where the underlying distribution is uniform, or more generally, a product distribution. Kalai, Samorodnitsky and Teng (2009) showed that in this setting a DNF expression can be efficiently approximated from its "heavy" low-degree Fourier coefficients alone. This is in contrast to previous approaches where boosting was used and thus Fourier coefficients of the target function modified by various distributions were needed. This property is crucial for learning of DNF expressions over smoothed product distributions, a learning model introduced by Kalai et al. (2009) and inspired by the seminal smoothed analysis model of Spielman and Teng (2001). We introduce a new approach to learning (or approximating) a polynomial threshold functions which is based on creating a function with range [-1,1] that approximately agrees with the unknown function on low-degree Fourier coefficients. We then describe conditions under which this is sufficient for learning polynomial threshold functions. Our approach yields a new, simple algorithm for approximating any polynomial-size DNF expression from its "heavy" low-degree Fourier coefficients alone. Our algorithm greatly simplifies the proof of learnability of DNF expressions over smoothed product distributions. We also describe an application of our algorithm to learning monotone DNF expressions over product distributions. Building on the work of Servedio (2001), we give an algorithm that runs in time $\poly((s \cdot \log{(s/\eps)})^{\log{(s/\eps)}}, n)$, where $s$ is the size of the target DNF expression and $\eps$ is the accuracy. This improves on $\poly((s \cdot \log{(ns/\eps)})^{\log{(s/\eps)} \cdot \log{(1/\eps)}}, n)$ bound of Servedio (2001).
1203.0617
Bayesian inference under differential privacy
cs.DB
Bayesian inference is an important technique throughout statistics. The essence of Beyesian inference is to derive the posterior belief updated from prior belief by the learned information, which is a set of differentially private answers under differential privacy. Although Bayesian inference can be used in a variety of applications, it becomes theoretically hard to solve when the number of differentially private answers is large. To facilitate Bayesian inference under differential privacy, this paper proposes a systematic mechanism. The key step of the mechanism is the implementation of Bayesian updating with the best linear unbiased estimator derived by Gauss-Markov theorem. In addition, we also apply the proposed inference mechanism into an online queryanswering system, the novelty of which is that the utility for users is guaranteed by Bayesian inference in the form of credible interval and confidence level. Theoretical and experimental analysis are shown to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of both inference mechanism and online query-answering system.
1203.0631
Checking Tests for Read-Once Functions over Arbitrary Bases
cs.DM cs.CC cs.LG
A Boolean function is called read-once over a basis B if it can be expressed by a formula over B where no variable appears more than once. A checking test for a read-once function f over B depending on all its variables is a set of input vectors distinguishing f from all other read-once functions of the same variables. We show that every read-once function f over B has a checking test containing O(n^l) vectors, where n is the number of relevant variables of f and l is the largest arity of functions in B. For some functions, this bound cannot be improved by more than a constant factor. The employed technique involves reconstructing f from its l-variable projections and provides a stronger form of Kuznetsov's classic theorem on read-once representations.
1203.0648
Towards Electronic Shopping of Composite Product
cs.SE cs.AI math.OC
In the paper, frameworks for electronic shopping of composite (modular) products are described: (a) multicriteria selection (product is considered as a whole system, it is a traditional approach), (b) combinatorial synthesis (composition) of the product from its components, (c) aggregation of the product from several selected products/prototypes. The following product model is examined: (i) general tree-like structure, (ii) set of system parts/components (leaf nodes), (iii) design alternatives (DAs) for each component, (iv) ordinal priorities for DAs, and (v) estimates of compatibility between DAs for different components. The combinatorial synthesis is realized as morphological design of a composite (modular) product or an extended composite product (e.g., product and support services as financial instruments). Here the solving process is based on Hierarchical Morphological Multicriteria Design (HMMD): (i) multicriteria selection of alternatives for system parts, (ii) composing the selected alternatives into a resultant combination (while taking into account ordinal quality of the alternatives above and their compatibility). The aggregation framework is based on consideration of aggregation procedures, for example: (i) addition procedure: design of a products substructure or an extended substructure ('kernel') and addition of elements, and (ii) design procedure: design of the composite solution based on all elements of product superstructure. Applied numerical examples (e.g., composite product, extended composite product, product repair plan, and product trajectory) illustrate the proposed approaches.
1203.0652
A likelihood-based framework for the analysis of discussion threads
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Online discussion threads are conversational cascades in the form of posted messages that can be generally found in social systems that comprise many-to-many interaction such as blogs, news aggregators or bulletin board systems. We propose a framework based on generative models of growing trees to analyse the structure and evolution of discussion threads. We consider the growth of a discussion to be determined by an interplay between popularity, novelty and a trend (or bias) to reply to the thread originator. The relevance of these features is estimated using a full likelihood approach and allows to characterize the habits and communication patterns of a given platform and/or community.
1203.0653
Kolmogorov complexity and the asymptotic bound for error-correcting codes
cs.IT math.IT
The set of all error--correcting block codes over a fixed alphabet with $q$ letters determines a recursively enumerable set of rational points in the unit square with coordinates $(R,\delta)$:= (relative transmission rate, relative minimal distance). Limit points of this set form a closed subset, defined by $R\le \alpha_q(\delta)$, where $\alpha_q(\delta)$ is a continuous decreasing function called asymptotic bound. Its existence was proved by the first--named author in 1981 ([Man1]), but no approaches to the computation of this function are known, and in [Man5] it was even suggested that this function might be uncomputable in the sense of constructive analysis. In this note we show that the asymptotic bound becomes computable with the assistance of an oracle producing codes in the order of their growing Kolmogorov complexity. Moreover, a natural partition function involving complexity allows us to interpret the asymptotic bound as a curve dividing two different thermodynamic phases of codes.
1203.0656
Contribution of Case Based Reasoning (CBR) in the Exploitation of Return of Experience. Application to Accident Scenarii in Railroad Transport
cs.AI cs.HC
The study is from a base of accident scenarii in rail transport (feedback) in order to develop a tool to share build and sustain knowledge and safety and secondly to exploit the knowledge stored to prevent the reproduction of accidents / incidents. This tool should ultimately lead to the proposal of prevention and protection measures to minimize the risk level of a new transport system and thus to improve safety. The approach to achieving this goal largely depends on the use of artificial intelligence techniques and rarely the use of a method of automatic learning in order to develop a feasibility model of a software tool based on case based reasoning (CBR) to exploit stored knowledge in order to create know-how that can help stimulate domain experts in the task of analysis, evaluation and certification of a new system.
1203.0683
A Method of Moments for Mixture Models and Hidden Markov Models
cs.LG stat.ML
Mixture models are a fundamental tool in applied statistics and machine learning for treating data taken from multiple subpopulations. The current practice for estimating the parameters of such models relies on local search heuristics (e.g., the EM algorithm) which are prone to failure, and existing consistent methods are unfavorable due to their high computational and sample complexity which typically scale exponentially with the number of mixture components. This work develops an efficient method of moments approach to parameter estimation for a broad class of high-dimensional mixture models with many components, including multi-view mixtures of Gaussians (such as mixtures of axis-aligned Gaussians) and hidden Markov models. The new method leads to rigorous unsupervised learning results for mixture models that were not achieved by previous works; and, because of its simplicity, it offers a viable alternative to EM for practical deployment.
1203.0695
Cooperative Compute-and-Forward
cs.IT math.IT
We examine the benefits of user cooperation under compute-and-forward. Much like in network coding, receivers in a compute-and-forward network recover finite-field linear combinations of transmitters' messages. Recovery is enabled by linear codes: transmitters map messages to a linear codebook, and receivers attempt to decode the incoming superposition of signals to an integer combination of codewords. However, the achievable computation rates are low if channel gains do not correspond to a suitable linear combination. In response to this challenge, we propose a cooperative approach to compute-and-forward. We devise a lattice-coding approach to block Markov encoding with which we construct a decode-and-forward style computation strategy. Transmitters broadcast lattice codewords, decode each other's messages, and then cooperatively transmit resolution information to aid receivers in decoding the integer combinations. Using our strategy, we show that cooperation offers a significant improvement both in the achievable computation rate and in the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff.
1203.0696
Dynamic Server Allocation over Time Varying Channels with Switchover Delay
math.OC cs.IT math.IT
We consider a dynamic server allocation problem over parallel queues with randomly varying connectivity and server switchover delay between the queues. At each time slot the server decides either to stay with the current queue or switch to another queue based on the current connectivity and the queue length information. Switchover delay occurs in many telecommunications applications and is a new modeling component of this problem that has not been previously addressed. We show that the simultaneous presence of randomly varying connectivity and switchover delay changes the system stability region and the structure of optimal policies. In the first part of the paper, we consider a system of two parallel queues, and develop a novel approach to explicitly characterize the stability region of the system using state-action frequencies which are stationary solutions to a Markov Decision Process (MDP) formulation. We then develop a frame-based dynamic control (FBDC) policy, based on the state-action frequencies, and show that it is throughput-optimal asymptotically in the frame length. The FBDC policy is applicable to a broad class of network control systems and provides a new framework for developing throughput-optimal network control policies using state-action frequencies. Furthermore, we develop simple Myopic policies that provably achieve more than 90% of the stability region. In the second part of the paper, we extend our results to systems with an arbitrary but finite number of queues.
1203.0697
Learning High-Dimensional Mixtures of Graphical Models
stat.ML cs.AI cs.LG
We consider unsupervised estimation of mixtures of discrete graphical models, where the class variable corresponding to the mixture components is hidden and each mixture component over the observed variables can have a potentially different Markov graph structure and parameters. We propose a novel approach for estimating the mixture components, and our output is a tree-mixture model which serves as a good approximation to the underlying graphical model mixture. Our method is efficient when the union graph, which is the union of the Markov graphs of the mixture components, has sparse vertex separators between any pair of observed variables. This includes tree mixtures and mixtures of bounded degree graphs. For such models, we prove that our method correctly recovers the union graph structure and the tree structures corresponding to maximum-likelihood tree approximations of the mixture components. The sample and computational complexities of our method scale as $\poly(p, r)$, for an $r$-component mixture of $p$-variate graphical models. We further extend our results to the case when the union graph has sparse local separators between any pair of observed variables, such as mixtures of locally tree-like graphs, and the mixture components are in the regime of correlation decay.
1203.0699
Ambiguous Language and Differences in Beliefs
cs.AI cs.GT
Standard models of multi-agent modal logic do not capture the fact that information is often ambiguous, and may be interpreted in different ways by different agents. We propose a framework that can model this, and consider different semantics that capture different assumptions about the agents' beliefs regarding whether or not there is ambiguity. We consider the impact of ambiguity on a seminal result in economics: Aumann's result saying that agents with a common prior cannot agree to disagree. This result is known not to hold if agents do not have a common prior; we show that it also does not hold in the presence of ambiguity. We then consider the tradeoff between assuming a common interpretation (i.e., no ambiguity) and a common prior (i.e., shared initial beliefs).
1203.0714
Towards an intelligence based conceptual framework for e-maintenance
cs.MA
Since the time when concept of e-maintenance was introduced, most of the works insisted on the relevance of the underlying Information and Communication Technologies infrastructure. Through a review of current e-maintenance conceptual approaches and realizations, this paper aims to reconsider the predominance of ICT within e-maintenance projects and literature. The review brings to light the importance of intelligence as a fundamental dimension of e-maintenance that is to be led in a holistic predefined manner rather than isolated efforts within ICT driven approaches. As a contribution towards an intelligence based e-maintenance conceptual framework, a proposal is outlined in this paper to model e-maintenance system as an intelligent system. The proposed frame is based on CogAff architecture for intelligent agents. Within the proposed frame, more importance was reserved to the environment that the system is to be continuously aware of: Plant Environment, Internal and External Enterprise Environment and Human Environment. In addition to the abilities required for internal coherent behavior of the system, requirements for maintenance activities support are also mapped within the same frame according to corresponding levels of management. A case study was detailed in this paper sustaining the applicability of the proposal in relation to the classification of existing e-maintenance platforms. However, more work is needed to enhance exhaustiveness of the frame to serve as a comparison tool of existing e-maintenance systems. At the conceptual level, our future work is to use the proposed frame in an e-maintenance project.
1203.0728
The maximum number of minimal codewords in an $[n,k]-$code
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
Upper and lower bounds are derived for the quantity in the title, which is tabulated for modest values of $n$ and $k.$ An application to graphs with many cycles is given.
1203.0730
Achievability proof via output statistics of random binning
cs.IT math.IT
This paper introduces a new and ubiquitous framework for establishing achievability results in \emph{network information theory} (NIT) problems. The framework uses random binning arguments and is based on a duality between channel and source coding problems. {Further,} the framework uses pmf approximation arguments instead of counting and typicality. This allows for proving coordination and \emph{strong} secrecy problems where certain statistical conditions on the distribution of random variables need to be satisfied. These statistical conditions include independence between messages and eavesdropper's observations in secrecy problems and closeness to a certain distribution (usually, i.i.d. distribution) in coordination problems. One important feature of the framework is to enable one {to} add an eavesdropper and obtain a result on the secrecy rates "for free." We make a case for generality of the framework by studying examples in the variety of settings containing channel coding, lossy source coding, joint source-channel coding, coordination, strong secrecy, feedback and relaying. In particular, by investigating the framework for the lossy source coding problem over broadcast channel, it is shown that the new framework provides a simple alternative scheme to \emph{hybrid} coding scheme. Also, new results on secrecy rate region (under strong secrecy criterion) of wiretap broadcast channel and wiretap relay channel are derived. In a set of accompanied papers, we have shown the usefulness of the framework to establish achievability results for coordination problems including interactive channel simulation, coordination via relay and channel simulation via another channel.
1203.0731
Coordination via a relay
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study the problem of coordinating two nodes which can only exchange information via a relay at limited rates. The nodes are allowed to do a two-round interactive two-way communication with the relay, after which they should be able to generate i.i.d. copies of two random variables with a given joint distribution within a vanishing total variation distance. We prove inner and outer bounds on the coordination capacity region for this problem. Our inner bound is proved using the technique of "output statistics of random binning" that has recently been developed by Yassaee, et al.
1203.0744
A Report on Multilinear PCA Plus Multilinear LDA to Deal with Tensorial Data: Visual Classification as An Example
cs.CV
In practical applications, we often have to deal with high order data, such as a grayscale image and a video sequence are intrinsically 2nd-order tensor and 3rd-order tensor, respectively. For doing clustering or classification of these high order data, it is a conventional way to vectorize these data before hand, as PCA or FDA does, which often induce the curse of dimensionality problem. For this reason, experts have developed many methods to deal with the tensorial data, such as multilinear PCA, multilinear LDA, and so on. In this paper, we still address the problem of high order data representation and recognition, and propose to study the result of merging multilinear PCA and multilinear LDA into one scenario, we name it \textbf{GDA} for the abbreviation of Generalized Discriminant Analysis. To evaluate GDA, we perform a series of experiments, and the experimental results demonstrate our GDA outperforms a selection of competing methods such (2D)$^2$PCA, (2D)$^2$LDA, and MDA.
1203.0747
A review of EO image information mining
cs.IR
We analyze the state of the art of content-based retrieval in Earth observation image archives focusing on complete systems showing promise for operational implementation. The different paradigms at the basis of the main system families are introduced. The approaches taken are analyzed, focusing in particular on the phases after primitive feature extraction. The solutions envisaged for the issues related to feature simplification and synthesis, indexing, semantic labeling are reviewed. The methodologies for query specification and execution are analyzed.
1203.0781
Posterior Mean Super-Resolution with a Compound Gaussian Markov Random Field Prior
cs.CV
This manuscript proposes a posterior mean (PM) super-resolution (SR) method with a compound Gaussian Markov random field (MRF) prior. SR is a technique to estimate a spatially high-resolution image from observed multiple low-resolution images. A compound Gaussian MRF model provides a preferable prior for natural images that preserves edges. PM is the optimal estimator for the objective function of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). This estimator is numerically determined by using variational Bayes (VB). We then solve the conjugate prior problem on VB and the exponential-order calculation cost problem of a compound Gaussian MRF prior with simple Taylor approximations. In experiments, the proposed method roughly overcomes existing methods.
1203.0788
Evolution of Wikipedia's Category Structure
physics.soc-ph cs.DL cs.SI
Wikipedia, as a social phenomenon of collaborative knowledge creating, has been studied extensively from various points of views. The category system of Wikipedia, introduced in 2004, has attracted relatively little attention. In this study, we focus on the documentation of knowledge, and the transformation of this documentation with time. We take Wikipedia as a proxy for knowledge in general and its category system as an aspect of the structure of this knowledge. We investigate the evolution of the category structure of the English Wikipedia from its birth in 2004 to 2008. We treat the category system as if it is a hierarchical Knowledge Organization System, capturing the changes in the distributions of the top categories. We investigate how the clustering of articles, defined by the category system, matches the direct link network between the articles and show how it changes over time. We find the Wikipedia category network mostly stable, but with occasional reorganization. We show that the clustering matches the link structure quite well, except short periods preceding the reorganizations.
1203.0856
Online Discriminative Dictionary Learning for Image Classification Based on Block-Coordinate Descent Method
cs.CV
Previous researches have demonstrated that the framework of dictionary learning with sparse coding, in which signals are decomposed as linear combinations of a few atoms of a learned dictionary, is well adept to reconstruction issues. This framework has also been used for discrimination tasks such as image classification. To achieve better performances of classification, experts develop several methods to learn a discriminative dictionary in a supervised manner. However, another issue is that when the data become extremely large in scale, these methods will be no longer effective as they are all batch-oriented approaches. For this reason, we propose a novel online algorithm for discriminative dictionary learning, dubbed \textbf{ODDL} in this paper. First, we introduce a linear classifier into the conventional dictionary learning formulation and derive a discriminative dictionary learning problem. Then, we exploit an online algorithm to solve the derived problem. Unlike the most existing approaches which update dictionary and classifier alternately via iteratively solving sub-problems, our approach directly explores them jointly. Meanwhile, it can largely shorten the runtime for training and is also particularly suitable for large-scale classification issues. To evaluate the performance of the proposed ODDL approach in image recognition, we conduct some experiments on three well-known benchmarks, and the experimental results demonstrate ODDL is fairly promising for image classification tasks.
1203.0876
An MLP based Approach for Recognition of Handwritten `Bangla' Numerals
cs.CV cs.AI
The work presented here involves the design of a Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) based pattern classifier for recognition of handwritten Bangla digits using a 76 element feature vector. Bangla is the second most popular script and language in the Indian subcontinent and the fifth most popular language in the world. The feature set developed for representing handwritten Bangla numerals here includes 24 shadow features, 16 centroid features and 36 longest-run features. On experimentation with a database of 6000 samples, the technique yields an average recognition rate of 96.67% evaluated after three-fold cross validation of results. It is useful for applications related to OCR of handwritten Bangla Digit and can also be extended to include OCR of handwritten characters of Bangla alphabet.
1203.0882
Handwritten Bangla Alphabet Recognition using an MLP Based Classifier
cs.CV cs.AI
The work presented here involves the design of a Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) based classifier for recognition of handwritten Bangla alphabet using a 76 element feature set Bangla is the second most popular script and language in the Indian subcontinent and the fifth most popular language in the world. The feature set developed for representing handwritten characters of Bangla alphabet includes 24 shadow features, 16 centroid features and 36 longest-run features. Recognition performances of the MLP designed to work with this feature set are experimentally observed as 86.46% and 75.05% on the samples of the training and the test sets respectively. The work has useful application in the development of a complete OCR system for handwritten Bangla text.
1203.0905
Autocalibration with the Minimum Number of Cameras with Known Pixel Shape
cs.CV
In 3D reconstruction, the recovery of the calibration parameters of the cameras is paramount since it provides metric information about the observed scene, e.g., measures of angles and ratios of distances. Autocalibration enables the estimation of the camera parameters without using a calibration device, but by enforcing simple constraints on the camera parameters. In the absence of information about the internal camera parameters such as the focal length and the principal point, the knowledge of the camera pixel shape is usually the only available constraint. Given a projective reconstruction of a rigid scene, we address the problem of the autocalibration of a minimal set of cameras with known pixel shape and otherwise arbitrarily varying intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. We propose an algorithm that only requires 5 cameras (the theoretical minimum), thus halving the number of cameras required by previous algorithms based on the same constraint. To this purpose, we introduce as our basic geometric tool the six-line conic variety (SLCV), consisting in the set of planes intersecting six given lines of 3D space in points of a conic. We show that the set of solutions of the Euclidean upgrading problem for three cameras with known pixel shape can be parameterized in a computationally efficient way. This parameterization is then used to solve autocalibration from five or more cameras, reducing the three-dimensional search space to a two-dimensional one. We provide experiments with real images showing the good performance of the technique.
1203.0924
An Efficient Algorithm to Calculate BICM Capacity
cs.IT math.IT
Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) is a practical approach for reliable communication over the AWGN channel in the bandwidth limited regime. For a signal point constellation with 2^m points, BICM labels the signal points with bit strings of length m and then treats these m bits separately both at the transmitter and the receiver. BICM capacity is defined as the maximum of a certain achievable rate. Maximization has to be done over the probability mass functions (pmf) of the bits. This is a non-convex optimization problem. So far, the optimal bit pmfs were determined via exhaustive search, which is of exponential complexity in m. In this work, an algorithm called bit-alternating convex concave method (Bacm) is developed. This algorithm calculates BICM capacity with a complexity that scales approximately as m^3. The algorithm iteratively applies convex optimization techniques. Bacm is used to calculate BICM capacity of 4,8,16,32, and 64-PAM in AWGN. For PAM constellations with more than 8 points, the presented values are the first results known in the literature.
1203.0960
Near Capacity Approaching for Large MIMO Systems by Non-Binary LDPC Codes with MMSE Detection
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we have investigated the application of non-binary LDPC codes to spatial multiplexing MIMO systems with a large number of low power antennas. We demonstrate that such large MIMO systems incorporating with low-complexity MMSE detector and non-binary LDPC codes can achieve low probability of bit error at near MIMO capacity. The new proposed non-binary LDPC coded system also performs better than other coded large MIMO systems known in the present literature. For instance, non-binary LDPC coded BPSK-MIMO system with 600 transmit/receive antennas performs within 3.4 dB from the capacity while the best known turbo coded system operates about 9.4 dB away from the capacity. Based on the simulation results provided in this paper, the proposed non-binary LDPC coded large MIMO system is capable of supporting ultra high spectral efficiency at low bit error rate.
1203.0970
Infinite Shift-invariant Grouped Multi-task Learning for Gaussian Processes
cs.LG astro-ph.IM stat.ML
Multi-task learning leverages shared information among data sets to improve the learning performance of individual tasks. The paper applies this framework for data where each task is a phase-shifted periodic time series. In particular, we develop a novel Bayesian nonparametric model capturing a mixture of Gaussian processes where each task is a sum of a group-specific function and a component capturing individual variation, in addition to each task being phase shifted. We develop an efficient \textsc{em} algorithm to learn the parameters of the model. As a special case we obtain the Gaussian mixture model and \textsc{em} algorithm for phased-shifted periodic time series. Furthermore, we extend the proposed model by using a Dirichlet Process prior and thereby leading to an infinite mixture model that is capable of doing automatic model selection. A Variational Bayesian approach is developed for inference in this model. Experiments in regression, classification and class discovery demonstrate the performance of the proposed models using both synthetic data and real-world time series data from astrophysics. Our methods are particularly useful when the time series are sparsely and non-synchronously sampled.
1203.1005
Sparse Subspace Clustering: Algorithm, Theory, and Applications
cs.CV cs.IR cs.IT cs.LG math.IT math.OC stat.ML
In many real-world problems, we are dealing with collections of high-dimensional data, such as images, videos, text and web documents, DNA microarray data, and more. Often, high-dimensional data lie close to low-dimensional structures corresponding to several classes or categories the data belongs to. In this paper, we propose and study an algorithm, called Sparse Subspace Clustering (SSC), to cluster data points that lie in a union of low-dimensional subspaces. The key idea is that, among infinitely many possible representations of a data point in terms of other points, a sparse representation corresponds to selecting a few points from the same subspace. This motivates solving a sparse optimization program whose solution is used in a spectral clustering framework to infer the clustering of data into subspaces. Since solving the sparse optimization program is in general NP-hard, we consider a convex relaxation and show that, under appropriate conditions on the arrangement of subspaces and the distribution of data, the proposed minimization program succeeds in recovering the desired sparse representations. The proposed algorithm can be solved efficiently and can handle data points near the intersections of subspaces. Another key advantage of the proposed algorithm with respect to the state of the art is that it can deal with data nuisances, such as noise, sparse outlying entries, and missing entries, directly by incorporating the model of the data into the sparse optimization program. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm through experiments on synthetic data as well as the two real-world problems of motion segmentation and face clustering.
1203.1007
Agnostic System Identification for Model-Based Reinforcement Learning
cs.LG cs.AI cs.SY stat.ML
A fundamental problem in control is to learn a model of a system from observations that is useful for controller synthesis. To provide good performance guarantees, existing methods must assume that the real system is in the class of models considered during learning. We present an iterative method with strong guarantees even in the agnostic case where the system is not in the class. In particular, we show that any no-regret online learning algorithm can be used to obtain a near-optimal policy, provided some model achieves low training error and access to a good exploration distribution. Our approach applies to both discrete and continuous domains. We demonstrate its efficacy and scalability on a challenging helicopter domain from the literature.
1203.1021
Development of an Ontology to Assist the Modeling of Accident Scenarii "Application on Railroad Transport "
cs.AI
In a world where communication and information sharing are at the heart of our business, the terminology needs are most pressing. It has become imperative to identify the terms used and defined in a consensual and coherent way while preserving linguistic diversity. To streamline and strengthen the process of acquisition, representation and exploitation of scenarii of train accidents, it is necessary to harmonize and standardize the terminology used by players in the security field. The research aims to significantly improve analytical activities and operations of the various safety studies, by tracking the error in system, hardware, software and human. This paper presents the contribution of ontology to modeling scenarii for rail accidents through a knowledge model based on a generic ontology and domain ontology. After a detailed presentation of the state of the art material, this article presents the first results of the developed model.
1203.1069
A Symbolic Approach to the Design of Nonlinear Networked Control Systems
cs.SY
Networked control systems (NCS) are spatially distributed systems where communication among plants, sensors, actuators and controllers occurs in a shared communication network. NCS have been studied for the last ten years and important research results have been obtained. These results are in the area of stability and stabilizability. However, while important, these results must be complemented in different areas to be able to design effective NCS. In this paper we approach the control design of NCS using symbolic (finite) models. Symbolic models are abstract descriptions of continuous systems where one symbol corresponds to an "aggregate" of continuous states. We consider a fairly general multiple-loop network architecture where plants communicate with digital controllers through a shared, non-ideal, communication network characterized by variable sampling and transmission intervals, variable communication delays, quantization errors, packet losses and limited bandwidth. We first derive a procedure to obtain symbolic models that are proven to approximate NCS in the sense of alternating approximate bisimulation. We then use these symbolic models to design symbolic controllers that realize specifications expressed in terms of automata on infinite strings. An example is provided where we address the control design of a pair of nonlinear control systems sharing a common communication network. The closed-loop NCS obtained is validated through the OMNeT++ network simulation framework.
1203.1095
Search Combinators
cs.AI
The ability to model search in a constraint solver can be an essential asset for solving combinatorial problems. However, existing infrastructure for defining search heuristics is often inadequate. Either modeling capabilities are extremely limited or users are faced with a general-purpose programming language whose features are not tailored towards writing search heuristics. As a result, major improvements in performance may remain unexplored. This article introduces search combinators, a lightweight and solver-independent method that bridges the gap between a conceptually simple modeling language for search (high-level, functional and naturally compositional) and an efficient implementation (low-level, imperative and highly non-modular). By allowing the user to define application-tailored search strategies from a small set of primitives, search combinators effectively provide a rich domain-specific language (DSL) for modeling search to the user. Remarkably, this DSL comes at a low implementation cost to the developer of a constraint solver. The article discusses two modular implementation approaches and shows, by empirical evaluation, that search combinators can be implemented without overhead compared to a native, direct implementation in a constraint solver.
1203.1105
Pairwise interaction pattern in the weighted communication network
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Although recent studies show that both topological structures and human dynamics can strongly affect information spreading on social networks, the complicated interplay of the two significant factors has not yet been clearly described. In this work, we find a strong pairwise interaction based on analyzing the weighted network generated by the short message communication dataset within a Chinese tele-communication provider. The pairwise interaction bridges the network topological structure and human interaction dynamics, which can promote local information spreading between pairs of communication partners and in contrast can also suppress global information (e.g., rumor) cascade and spreading. In addition, the pairwise interaction is the basic pattern of group conversations and it can greatly reduce the waiting time of communication events between a pair of intimate friends. Our findings are also helpful for communication operators to design novel tariff strategies and optimize their communication services.
1203.1150
A New Analysis Method for Simulations Using Node Categorizations
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Most research concerning the influence of network structure on phenomena taking place on the network focus on relationships between global statistics of the network structure and characteristic properties of those phenomena, even though local structure has a significant effect on the dynamics of some phenomena. In the present paper, we propose a new analysis method for phenomena on networks based on a categorization of nodes. First, local statistics such as the average path length and the clustering coefficient for a node are calculated and assigned to the respective node. Then, the nodes are categorized using the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm. Characteristic properties of the phenomena of interest are visualized for each category of nodes. The validity of our method is demonstrated using the results of two simulation models. The proposed method is useful as a research tool to understand the behavior of networks, in particular, for the large-scale networks that existing visualization techniques cannot work well.
1203.1179
An efficient strategy to suppress epidemic explosion in heterogeneous metapopulation networks
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
We propose an efficient strategy to suppress epidemic explosion in heterogeneous metapopulation networks, wherein each node represents a subpopulation with any number of individuals and is assigned a curing rate that is proportional to $k^{\alpha}$ with $k$ the node degree and $\alpha$ an adjustable parameter. We have performed stochastic simulations of the dynamical reaction-diffusion processes associated with the susceptible-infected-susceptible model in scale-free networks. We found that the epidemic threshold reaches a maximum when the exponent $\alpha$ is tuned to be $\alpha_{opt}\simeq 1.3$. This nontrivial phenomenon is robust to the change of the network size and the average degree. In addition, we have carried out a mean field analysis to further validate our scheme, which also demonstrates that epidemic explosion follows different routes for $\alpha$ larger or less than $\alpha_{opt}$. Our work suggests that in order to effectively suppress epidemic spreading on heterogeneous complex networks, subpopulations with higher degrees should be allocated more resources than just being linearly dependent on the degree $k$.
1203.1180
Incremental Temporal Logic Synthesis of Control Policies for Robots Interacting with Dynamic Agents
cs.RO
We consider the synthesis of control policies from temporal logic specifications for robots that interact with multiple dynamic environment agents. Each environment agent is modeled by a Markov chain whereas the robot is modeled by a finite transition system (in the deterministic case) or Markov decision process (in the stochastic case). Existing results in probabilistic verification are adapted to solve the synthesis problem. To partially address the state explosion issue, we propose an incremental approach where only a small subset of environment agents is incorporated in the synthesis procedure initially and more agents are successively added until we hit the constraints on computational resources. Our algorithm runs in an anytime fashion where the probability that the robot satisfies its specification increases as the algorithm progresses.
1203.1212
Codes Satisfying the Chain Condition with a Poset Weights
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we extend the concept of generalized Wei weights for poset-weight codes and show that all linear codes C satisfy the chain condition if support of C is a subposet totally ordered.
1203.1251
The collective oscillation period of inter-coupled Goodwin oscillators
cs.SY nlin.CD physics.bio-ph q-bio.MN
Many biological oscillators are arranged in networks composed of many inter-coupled cellular oscillators. However, results are still lacking on the collective oscillation period of inter-coupled gene regulatory oscillators, which, as has been reported, may be different from the oscillation period of an autonomous cellular oscillator. Based on the Goodwin oscillator, we analyze the collective oscillation pattern of coupled cellular oscillator networks. First we give a condition under which the oscillator network exhibits oscillatory and synchronized behavior, then we estimate the collective oscillation period based on a multivariable harmonic balance technique. Analytical results are derived in terms of biochemical parameters, thus giving insight into the basic mechanism of biological oscillation and providing guidance in synthetic biology design. Simulation results are given to confirm the theoretical predictions.
1203.1263
NLSEmagic: Nonlinear Schr\"odinger Equation Multidimensional Matlab-based GPU-accelerated Integrators using Compact High-order Schemes
cs.MS cs.CE physics.comp-ph
We present a simple to use, yet powerful code package called NLSEmagic to numerically integrate the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation in one, two, and three dimensions. NLSEmagic is a high-order finite-difference code package which utilizes graphic processing unit (GPU) parallel architectures. The codes running on the GPU are many times faster than their serial counterparts, and are much cheaper to run than on standard parallel clusters. The codes are developed with usability and portability in mind, and therefore are written to interface with MATLAB utilizing custom GPU-enabled C codes with the MEX-compiler interface. The packages are freely distributed, including user manuals and set-up files.
1203.1276
Optimal Control Design under Limited Model Information for Discrete-Time Linear Systems with Stochastically-Varying Parameters
math.OC cs.SY
The value of plant model information available in the control design process is discussed. We design optimal state-feedback controllers for interconnected discrete-time linear systems with stochastically-varying parameters. The parameters are assumed to be independently and identically distributed random variables in time. The design of each controller relies only on (i) exact local plant model information and (ii) statistical beliefs about the model of the rest of the system. We consider both finite-horizon and infinite-horizon quadratic cost functions. The optimal state-feedback controller is derived in both cases. The optimal controller is shown to be linear in the state and to depend on the model parameters and their statistics in a particular way. Furthermore, we study the value of model information in optimal control design using the performance degradation ratio which is defined as the supremum (over all possible initial conditions) of the ratio of the cost of the optimal controller with limited model information scaled by the cost of the optimal controller with full model information. An upper bound for the performance degradation ratio is presented for the case of fully-actuated subsystems. Comparisons are made between designs based on limited, statistical, and full model information. Throughout the paper, we use a power network example to illustrate concepts and results.
1203.1278
Efficient recovery-based error estimation for the smoothed finite element method for smooth and singular linear elasticity
cs.NA cs.CE math.NA
An error control technique aimed to assess the quality of smoothed finite element approximations is presented in this paper. Finite element techniques based on strain smoothing appeared in 2007 were shown to provide significant advantages compared to conventional finite element approximations. In particular, a widely cited strength of such methods is improved accuracy for the same computational cost. Yet, few attempts have been made to directly assess the quality of the results obtained during the simulation by evaluating an estimate of the discretization error. Here we propose a recovery type error estimator based on an enhanced recovery technique. The salient features of the recovery are: enforcement of local equilibrium and, for singular problems a "smooth+singular" decomposition of the recovered stress. We evaluate the proposed estimator on a number of test cases from linear elastic structural mechanics and obtain precise error estimations whose effectivities, both at local and global levels, are improved compared to recovery procedures not implementing these features.
1203.1301
Optimal Use of Current and Outdated Channel State Information - Degrees of Freedom of the MISO BC with Mixed CSIT
cs.IT math.IT
We consider a multiple-input-single-output (MISO) broadcast channel with mixed channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) that consists of imperfect current CSIT and perfect outdated CSIT. Recent work by Kobayashi et al. presented a scheme which exploits both imperfect current CSIT and perfect outdated CSIT and achieves higher degrees of freedom (DoF) than possible with only imperfect current CSIT or only outdated CSIT individually. In this work, we further improve the achievable DoF in this setting by incorporating additional private messages, and provide a tight information theoretic DoF outer bound, thereby identifying the DoF optimal use of mixed CSIT. The new result is stronger even in the original setting of only delayed CSIT, because it allows us to remove the restricting assumption of statistically equivalent fading for all users.
1203.1304
Analytical Modeling of Uplink Cellular Networks
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT math.PR
Cellular uplink analysis has typically been undertaken by either a simple approach that lumps all interference into a single deterministic or random parameter in a Wyner-type model, or via complex system level simulations that often do not provide insight into why various trends are observed. This paper proposes a novel middle way using point processes that is both accurate and also results in easy-to-evaluate integral expressions based on the Laplace transform of the interference. We assume mobiles and base stations are randomly placed in the network with each mobile pairing up to its closest base station. Compared to related recent work on downlink analysis, the proposed uplink model differs in two key features. First, dependence is considered between user and base station point processes to make sure each base station serves a single mobile in the given resource block. Second, per-mobile power control is included, which further couples the transmission of mobiles due to location-dependent channel inversion. Nevertheless, we succeed in deriving the coverage (equivalently outage) probability of a typical link in the network. This model can be used to address a wide variety of system design questions in the future. In this paper we focus on the implications for power control and see that partial channel inversion should be used at low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), while full power transmission is optimal at higher SINR.
1203.1338
Network Structure, Topology and Dynamics in Generalized Models of Synchronization
cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI nlin.CD physics.soc-ph
We explore the interplay of network structure, topology, and dynamic interactions between nodes using the paradigm of distributed synchronization in a network of coupled oscillators. As the network evolves to a global steady state, interconnected oscillators synchronize in stages, revealing network's underlying community structure. Traditional models of synchronization assume that interactions between nodes are mediated by a conservative process, such as diffusion. However, social and biological processes are often non-conservative. We propose a new model of synchronization in a network of oscillators coupled via non-conservative processes. We study dynamics of synchronization of a synthetic and real-world networks and show that different synchronization models reveal different structures within the same network.
1203.1349
The Evolution of Complex Networks: A New Framework
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI stat.AP
We introduce a new framework for the analysis of the dynamics of networks, based on randomly reinforced urn (RRU) processes, in which the weight of the edges is determined by a reinforcement mechanism. We rigorously explain the empirical evidence that in many real networks there is a subset of "dominant edges" that control a major share of the total weight of the network. Furthermore, we introduce a new statistical procedure to study the evolution of networks over time, assessing if a given instance of the nework is taken at its steady state or not. Our results are quite general, since they are not based on a particular probability distribution or functional form of the weights. We test our model in the context of the International Trade Network, showing the existence of a core of dominant links and determining its size.
1203.1376
MIMO Multiple Access Channel with an Arbitrarily Varying Eavesdropper
cs.IT math.IT
A two-transmitter Gaussian multiple access wiretap channel with multiple antennas at each of the nodes is investigated. The channel matrices at the legitimate terminals are fixed and revealed to all the terminals, whereas the channel matrix of the eavesdropper is arbitrarily varying and only known to the eavesdropper. The secrecy degrees of freedom (s.d.o.f.) region under a strong secrecy constraint is characterized. A transmission scheme that orthogonalizes the transmit signals of the two users at the intended receiver and uses a single-user wiretap code is shown to be sufficient to achieve the s.d.o.f. region. The converse involves establishing an upper bound on a weighted-sum-rate expression. This is accomplished by using induction, where at each step one combines the secrecy and multiple-access constraints associated with an adversary eavesdropping a carefully selected group of sub-channels.
1203.1378
Epidemic Intelligence for the Crowd, by the Crowd (Full Version)
cs.SI cs.CY physics.soc-ph
Tracking Twitter for public health has shown great potential. However, most recent work has been focused on correlating Twitter messages to influenza rates, a disease that exhibits a marked seasonal pattern. In the presence of sudden outbreaks, how can social media streams be used to strengthen surveillance capacity? In May 2011, Germany reported an outbreak of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC). It was one of the largest described outbreaks of EHEC/HUS worldwide and the largest in Germany. In this work, we study the crowd's behavior in Twitter during the outbreak. In particular, we report how tracking Twitter helped to detect key user messages that triggered signal detection alarms before MedISys and other well established early warning systems. We also introduce a personalized learning to rank approach that exploits the relationships discovered by: (i) latent semantic topics computed using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), and (ii) observing the social tagging behavior in Twitter, to rank tweets for epidemic intelligence. Our results provide the grounds for new public health research based on social media.
1203.1394
Towards a class of complex networks models for conflict dynamics
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI math-ph math.MP
Using properties of isospectral flows we introduce a class of equations useful to represent signed complex networks free continuous time evolution Jammed and balanced states are obtained introducing a class of link potentials breaking isospectral invariance of the network. Applications to conflict dynamics in social and international relations networks are discussed.
1203.1406
Communication over Individual Channels -- a general framework
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of communicating over a channel for which no mathematical model is specified, and the achievable rates are determined as a function of the channel input and output sequences known a-posteriori, without assuming any a-priori relation between them. In a previous paper we have shown that the empirical mutual information between the input and output sequences is achievable without specifying the channel model, by using feedback and common randomness, and a similar result for real-valued input and output alphabets. In this paper, we present a unifying framework which includes the two previous results as particular cases. We characterize the region of rate functions which are achievable, and show that asymptotically the rate function is equivalent to a conditional distribution of the channel input given the output. We present a scheme that achieves these rates with asymptotically vanishing overheads.
1203.1410
Improved Method for Searching of Interleavers Using Garello's Method
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper an improved method for searching good interleavers from a certain set is proposed. The first few terms, corresponding to maximum distance of approximately 40 of the distance spectra, for turbo codes using these interleavers are determined by means of Garello's method. The method is applied to find quadratic permutation polynomials (QPP) based interleavers. Compared to previous methods for founding QPP based interleavers, the search complexity is reduced, allowing to find interleavers of higher length. This method has been applied for QPP interleavers with lengths from the LTE (Long Term Evolution) standard up to 1504. The analyzed classes are those with the largest spread QPP (LS-QPP), with the D parameter equal to that of LTE interleaver (D_L_T_E-QPP), and the class consisting of all QPP interleavers for lengths up to 1008. The distance spectrum optimization is made for all classes. For the class of LS-QPP interleavers of small lengths, the search led to superior or at least equal performances with those of the LTE standard. For larger lengths the search in the class of D_L_T_E-QPP interleavers is preferred. The interleavers from the entire class of QPPs lead, in general, to weaker FER (Frame Error Rate) performance.
1203.1418
A Note on a Conjecture for Balanced Elementary Symmetric Boolean Functions
cs.IT math.IT
In 2008, Cusick {\it et al.} conjectured that certain elementary symmetric Boolean functions of the form $\sigma_{2^{t+1}l-1, 2^t}$ are the only nonlinear balanced ones, where $t$, $l$ are any positive integers, and $\sigma_{n,d}=\bigoplus_{1\le i_1<...<i_d\le n}x_{i_1}x_{i_2}...x_{i_d}$ for positive integers $n$, $1\le d\le n$. In this note, by analyzing the weight of $\sigma_{n, 2^t}$ and $\sigma_{n, d}$, we prove that ${\rm wt}(\sigma_{n, d})<2^{n-1}$ holds in most cases, and so does the conjecture. According to the remainder of modulo 4, we also consider the weight of $\sigma_{n, d}$ from two aspects: $n\equiv 3({\rm mod\}4)$ and $n\not\equiv 3({\rm mod\}4)$. Thus, we can simplify the conjecture. In particular, our results cover the most known results. In order to fully solve the conjecture, we also consider the weight of $\sigma_{n, 2^t+2^s}$ and give some experiment results on it.
1203.1426
Optimizing spread dynamics on graphs by message passing
cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI math.OC
Cascade processes are responsible for many important phenomena in natural and social sciences. Simple models of irreversible dynamics on graphs, in which nodes activate depending on the state of their neighbors, have been successfully applied to describe cascades in a large variety of contexts. Over the last decades, many efforts have been devoted to understand the typical behaviour of the cascades arising from initial conditions extracted at random from some given ensemble. However, the problem of optimizing the trajectory of the system, i.e. of identifying appropriate initial conditions to maximize (or minimize) the final number of active nodes, is still considered to be practically intractable, with the only exception of models that satisfy a sort of diminishing returns property called submodularity. Submodular models can be approximately solved by means of greedy strategies, but by definition they lack cooperative characteristics which are fundamental in many real systems. Here we introduce an efficient algorithm based on statistical physics for the optimization of trajectories in cascade processes on graphs. We show that for a wide class of irreversible dynamics, even in the absence of submodularity, the spread optimization problem can be solved efficiently on large networks. Analytic and algorithmic results on random graphs are complemented by the solution of the spread maximization problem on a real-world network (the Epinions consumer reviews network).
1203.1429
Probabilistic Optimal Estimation and Filtering under Uncertainty
cs.SY math.OC
The classical approach to system identification is based on stochastic assumptions about the measurement error, and provides estimates that have random nature. Worst-case identification, on the other hand, only assumes the knowledge of deterministic error bounds, and establishes guaranteed estimates, thus being in principle better suited for the use in control design. However, a main limitation of such deterministic bounds lies on their potential conservatism, thus leading to estimates of restricted use. In this paper, we propose a rapprochement between the stochastic and worst-case paradigms. In particular, based on a probabilistic framework for linear estimation problems, we derive new computational results. These results combine elements from information-based complexity with recent developments in the theory of randomized algorithms. The main idea in this line of research is to "discard" sets of measure at most \epsilon, where \epsilon is a probabilistic accuracy, from the set of deterministic estimates. Therefore, we are decreasing the so-called worst-case radius of information at the expense of a given probabilistic ``risk." In this setting, we compute a trade-off curve, called violation function, which shows how the radius of information decreases as a function of the accuracy. To this end, we construct randomized and deterministic algorithms which provide approximations of this function. We report extensive simulations showing numerical comparisons between the stochastic, worst-case and probabilistic approaches, thus demonstrating the efficacy of the methods proposed in this paper.
1203.1435
On a (\beta,q)-generalized Fisher information and inequalities involving q-Gaussian distributions
math-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.IT math.IT math.MP
In the present paper, we would like to draw attention to a possible generalized Fisher information that fits well in the formalism of nonextensive thermostatistics. This generalized Fisher information is defined for densities on $\mathbb{R}^{n}.$ Just as the maximum R\'enyi or Tsallis entropy subject to an elliptic moment constraint is a generalized q-Gaussian, we show that the minimization of the generalized Fisher information also leads a generalized q-Gaussian. This yields a generalized Cram\'er-Rao inequality. In addition, we show that the generalized Fisher information naturally pops up in a simple inequality that links the generalized entropies, the generalized Fisher information and an elliptic moment. Finally, we give an extended Stam inequality. In this series of results, the extremal functions are the generalized q-Gaussians. Thus, these results complement the classical characterization of the generalized q-Gaussian and introduce a generalized Fisher information as a new information measure in nonextensive thermostatistics.
1203.1439
Exploring complex networks by means of adaptive walkers
nlin.AO cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Finding efficient algorithms to explore large networks with the aim of recovering information about their structure is an open problem. Here, we investigate this challenge by proposing a model in which random walkers with previously assigned home nodes navigate through the network during a fixed amount of time. We consider that the exploration is successful if the walker gets the information gathered back home, otherwise, no data is retrieved. Consequently, at each time step, the walkers, with some probability, have the choice to either go backward approaching their home or go farther away. We show that there is an optimal solution to this problem in terms of the average information retrieved and the degree of the home nodes and design an adaptive strategy based on the behavior of the random walker. Finally, we compare different strategies that emerge from the model in the context of network reconstruction. Our results could be useful for the discovery of unknown connections in large scale networks.
1203.1457
PageRank optimization applied to spam detection
math.OC cs.IR
We give a new link spam detection and PageRank demotion algorithm called MaxRank. Like TrustRank and AntiTrustRank, it starts with a seed of hand-picked trusted and spam pages. We define the MaxRank of a page as the frequency of visit of this page by a random surfer minimizing an average cost per time unit. On a given page, the random surfer selects a set of hyperlinks and clicks with uniform probability on any of these hyperlinks. The cost function penalizes spam pages and hyperlink removals. The goal is to determine a hyperlink deletion policy that minimizes this score. The MaxRank is interpreted as a modified PageRank vector, used to sort web pages instead of the usual PageRank vector. The bias vector of this ergodic control problem, which is unique up to an additive constant, is a measure of the "spamicity" of each page, used to detect spam pages. We give a scalable algorithm for MaxRank computation that allowed us to perform experimental results on the WEBSPAM-UK2007 dataset. We show that our algorithm outperforms both TrustRank and AntiTrustRank for spam and nonspam page detection.
1203.1483
Learning Random Kernel Approximations for Object Recognition
cs.CV cs.LG
Approximations based on random Fourier features have recently emerged as an efficient and formally consistent methodology to design large-scale kernel machines. By expressing the kernel as a Fourier expansion, features are generated based on a finite set of random basis projections, sampled from the Fourier transform of the kernel, with inner products that are Monte Carlo approximations of the original kernel. Based on the observation that different kernel-induced Fourier sampling distributions correspond to different kernel parameters, we show that an optimization process in the Fourier domain can be used to identify the different frequency bands that are useful for prediction on training data. Moreover, the application of group Lasso to random feature vectors corresponding to a linear combination of multiple kernels, leads to efficient and scalable reformulations of the standard multiple kernel learning model \cite{Varma09}. In this paper we develop the linear Fourier approximation methodology for both single and multiple gradient-based kernel learning and show that it produces fast and accurate predictors on a complex dataset such as the Visual Object Challenge 2011 (VOC2011).
1203.1505
Performance of a Distributed Stochastic Approximation Algorithm
math.OC cs.DC cs.SY
In this paper, a distributed stochastic approximation algorithm is studied. Applications of such algorithms include decentralized estimation, optimization, control or computing. The algorithm consists in two steps: a local step, where each node in a network updates a local estimate using a stochastic approximation algorithm with decreasing step size, and a gossip step, where a node computes a local weighted average between its estimates and those of its neighbors. Convergence of the estimates toward a consensus is established under weak assumptions. The approach relies on two main ingredients: the existence of a Lyapunov function for the mean field in the agreement subspace, and a contraction property of the random matrices of weights in the subspace orthogonal to the agreement subspace. A second order analysis of the algorithm is also performed under the form of a Central Limit Theorem. The Polyak-averaged version of the algorithm is also considered.
1203.1513
Invariant Scattering Convolution Networks
cs.CV
A wavelet scattering network computes a translation invariant image representation, which is stable to deformations and preserves high frequency information for classification. It cascades wavelet transform convolutions with non-linear modulus and averaging operators. The first network layer outputs SIFT-type descriptors whereas the next layers provide complementary invariant information which improves classification. The mathematical analysis of wavelet scattering networks explains important properties of deep convolution networks for classification. A scattering representation of stationary processes incorporates higher order moments and can thus discriminate textures having the same Fourier power spectrum. State of the art classification results are obtained for handwritten digits and texture discrimination, using a Gaussian kernel SVM and a generative PCA classifier.
1203.1515
Multiple Change Point Estimation in Stationary Ergodic Time Series
stat.ML cs.IT math.IT math.ST stat.TH
Given a heterogeneous time-series sample, the objective is to find points in time (called change points) where the probability distribution generating the data has changed. The data are assumed to have been generated by arbitrary unknown stationary ergodic distributions. No modelling, independence or mixing assumptions are made. A novel, computationally efficient, nonparametric method is proposed, and is shown to be asymptotically consistent in this general framework. The theoretical results are complemented with experimental evaluations.
1203.1521
Oracle-order Recovery Performance of Greedy Pursuits with Replacement against General Perturbations
cs.IT math.IT
Applying the theory of compressive sensing in practice always takes different kinds of perturbations into consideration. In this paper, the recovery performance of greedy pursuits with replacement for sparse recovery is analyzed when both the measurement vector and the sensing matrix are contaminated with additive perturbations. Specifically, greedy pursuits with replacement include three algorithms, compressive sampling matching pursuit (CoSaMP), subspace pursuit (SP), and iterative hard thresholding (IHT), where the support estimation is evaluated and updated in each iteration. Based on restricted isometry property, a unified form of the error bounds of these recovery algorithms is derived under general perturbations for compressible signals. The results reveal that the recovery performance is stable against both perturbations. In addition, these bounds are compared with that of oracle recovery--- least squares solution with the locations of some largest entries in magnitude known a priori. The comparison shows that the error bounds of these algorithms only differ in coefficients from the lower bound of oracle recovery for some certain signal and perturbations, as reveals that oracle-order recovery performance of greedy pursuits with replacement is guaranteed. Numerical simulations are performed to verify the conclusions.
1203.1524
On the Influence of Informed Agents on Learning and Adaptation over Networks
cs.IT cs.SI math.IT
Adaptive networks consist of a collection of agents with adaptation and learning abilities. The agents interact with each other on a local level and diffuse information across the network through their collaborations. In this work, we consider two types of agents: informed agents and uninformed agents. The former receive new data regularly and perform consultation and in-network tasks, while the latter do not collect data and only participate in the consultation tasks. We examine the performance of adaptive networks as a function of the proportion of informed agents and their distribution in space. The results reveal some interesting and surprising trade-offs between convergence rate and mean-square performance. In particular, among other results, it is shown that the performance of adaptive networks does not necessarily improve with a larger proportion of informed agents. Instead, it is established that the larger the proportion of informed agents is, the faster the convergence rate of the network becomes albeit at the expense of some deterioration in mean-square performance. The results further establish that uninformed agents play an important role in determining the steady-state performance of the network, and that it is preferable to keep some of the highly connected agents uninformed. The arguments reveal an important interplay among three factors: the number and distribution of informed agents in the network, the convergence rate of the learning process, and the estimation accuracy in steady-state. Expressions that quantify these relations are derived, and simulations are included to support the theoretical findings. We further apply the results to two models that are widely used to represent behavior over complex networks, namely, the Erdos-Renyi and scale-free models.
1203.1527
Optimum Subcodes of Self-Dual Codes and Their Optimum Distance Profiles
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
Binary optimal codes often contain optimal or near-optimal subcodes. In this paper we show that this is true for the family of self-dual codes. One approach is to compute the optimum distance profiles (ODPs) of linear codes, which was introduced by Luo, et. al. (2010). One of our main results is the development of general algorithms, called the Chain Algorithms, for finding ODPs of linear codes. Then we determine the ODPs for the Type II codes of lengths up to 24 and the extremal Type II codes of length 32, give a partial result of the ODP of the extended quadratic residue code $q_{48}$ of length 48. We also show that there does not exist a $[48,k,16]$ subcode of $q_{48}$ for $k \ge 17$, and we find a first example of a doubly-even self-complementary $[48, 16, 16]$ code.
1203.1528
A Two-Dimensional Signal Space for Intensity-Modulated Channels
cs.IT math.IT
A two-dimensional signal space for intensity- modulated channels is presented. Modulation formats using this signal space are designed to maximize the minimum distance between signal points while satisfying average and peak power constraints. The uncoded, high-signal-to-noise ratio, power and spectral efficiencies are compared to those of the best known formats. The new formats are simpler than existing subcarrier formats, and are superior if the bandwidth is measured as 90% in-band power. Existing subcarrier formats are better if the bandwidth is measured as 99% in-band power.
1203.1535
Performance Analysis of l_0 Norm Constraint Least Mean Square Algorithm
cs.IT cs.PF math.IT
As one of the recently proposed algorithms for sparse system identification, $l_0$ norm constraint Least Mean Square ($l_0$-LMS) algorithm modifies the cost function of the traditional method with a penalty of tap-weight sparsity. The performance of $l_0$-LMS is quite attractive compared with its various precursors. However, there has been no detailed study of its performance. This paper presents all-around and throughout theoretical performance analysis of $l_0$-LMS for white Gaussian input data based on some reasonable assumptions. Expressions for steady-state mean square deviation (MSD) are derived and discussed with respect to algorithm parameters and system sparsity. The parameter selection rule is established for achieving the best performance. Approximated with Taylor series, the instantaneous behavior is also derived. In addition, the relationship between $l_0$-LMS and some previous arts and the sufficient conditions for $l_0$-LMS to accelerate convergence are set up. Finally, all of the theoretical results are compared with simulations and are shown to agree well in a large range of parameter setting.
1203.1538
Proof of Convergence and Performance Analysis for Sparse Recovery via Zero-point Attracting Projection
cs.IT cs.PF math.IT
A recursive algorithm named Zero-point Attracting Projection (ZAP) is proposed recently for sparse signal reconstruction. Compared with the reference algorithms, ZAP demonstrates rather good performance in recovery precision and robustness. However, any theoretical analysis about the mentioned algorithm, even a proof on its convergence, is not available. In this work, a strict proof on the convergence of ZAP is provided and the condition of convergence is put forward. Based on the theoretical analysis, it is further proved that ZAP is non-biased and can approach the sparse solution to any extent, with the proper choice of step-size. Furthermore, the case of inaccurate measurements in noisy scenario is also discussed. It is proved that disturbance power linearly reduces the recovery precision, which is predictable but not preventable. The reconstruction deviation of $p$-compressible signal is also provided. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to verify the theoretical analysis.
1203.1548
Retrieval of Sparse Solutions of Multiple-Measurement Vectors via Zero-point Attracting Projection
cs.IT math.IT
A new sparse signal recovery algorithm for multiple-measurement vectors (MMV) problem is proposed in this paper. The sparse representation is iteratively drawn based on the idea of zero-point attracting projection (ZAP). In each iteration, the solution is first updated along the negative gradient direction of an approximate $\ell_{2,0}$ norm to encourage sparsity, and then projected to the solution space to satisfy the under-determined equation. A variable step size scheme is adopted further to accelerate the convergence as well as to improve the recovery accuracy. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the performance of the proposed algorithm exceeds the references in various aspects, as well as when applied to the Modulated Wideband Converter, where recovering MMV problem is crucial to its performance.
1203.1569
SPARQL for a Web of Linked Data: Semantics and Computability (Extended Version)
cs.DB
The World Wide Web currently evolves into a Web of Linked Data where content providers publish and link data as they have done with hypertext for the last 20 years. While the declarative query language SPARQL is the de facto for querying a-priory defined sets of data from the Web, no language exists for querying the Web of Linked Data itself. However, it seems natural to ask whether SPARQL is also suitable for such a purpose. In this paper we formally investigate the applicability of SPARQL as a query language for Linked Data on the Web. In particular, we study two query models: 1) a full-Web semantics where the scope of a query is the complete set of Linked Data on the Web and 2) a family of reachability-based semantics which restrict the scope to data that is reachable by traversing certain data links. For both models we discuss properties such as monotonicity and computability as well as the implications of querying a Web that is infinitely large due to data generating servers.
1203.1570
In-network Sparsity-regularized Rank Minimization: Algorithms and Applications
cs.MA cs.IT cs.NI math.IT stat.ML
Given a limited number of entries from the superposition of a low-rank matrix plus the product of a known fat compression matrix times a sparse matrix, recovery of the low-rank and sparse components is a fundamental task subsuming compressed sensing, matrix completion, and principal components pursuit. This paper develops algorithms for distributed sparsity-regularized rank minimization over networks, when the nuclear- and $\ell_1$-norm are used as surrogates to the rank and nonzero entry counts of the sought matrices, respectively. While nuclear-norm minimization has well-documented merits when centralized processing is viable, non-separability of the singular-value sum challenges its distributed minimization. To overcome this limitation, an alternative characterization of the nuclear norm is adopted which leads to a separable, yet non-convex cost minimized via the alternating-direction method of multipliers. The novel distributed iterations entail reduced-complexity per-node tasks, and affordable message passing among single-hop neighbors. Interestingly, upon convergence the distributed (non-convex) estimator provably attains the global optimum of its centralized counterpart, regardless of initialization. Several application domains are outlined to highlight the generality and impact of the proposed framework. These include unveiling traffic anomalies in backbone networks, predicting networkwide path latencies, and mapping the RF ambiance using wireless cognitive radios. Simulations with synthetic and real network data corroborate the convergence of the novel distributed algorithm, and its centralized performance guarantees.
1203.1588
Rate Maximization for Half-Duplex Multiple Access with Cooperating Transmitters
cs.IT math.IT
We derive the optimal resource allocation of a practical half-duplex scheme for the Gaussian multiple access channel with transmitter cooperation (MAC-TC). Based on rate splitting and superposition coding, two users transmit information to a destination over 3 phases, such that the users partially exchange their information during the first 2 phases and cooperatively transmit to the destination during the last one. This scheme is near capacity-achieving when the inter-user links are stronger than each user-destination link; it also includes partial decode-forward relaying as a special case. We propose efficient algorithms to find the optimal resource allocation for maximizing either the individual or the sum rate and identify the corresponding optimal scheme for each channel configuration. For fixed phase durations, the power allocation problem is convex and can be solved analytically based on the KKT conditions. The optimal phase durations can then be obtained numerically using simple search methods. Results show that as the interuser link qualities increase, the optimal scheme moves from no cooperation to partial then to full cooperation, in which the users fully exchange their information and cooperatively send it to the destination. Therefore, in practical systems with strong inter-user links, simple decode-forward relaying at both users is rate-optimal.
1203.1596
Multiple Operator-valued Kernel Learning
stat.ML cs.LG
Positive definite operator-valued kernels generalize the well-known notion of reproducing kernels, and are naturally adapted to multi-output learning situations. This paper addresses the problem of learning a finite linear combination of infinite-dimensional operator-valued kernels which are suitable for extending functional data analysis methods to nonlinear contexts. We study this problem in the case of kernel ridge regression for functional responses with an lr-norm constraint on the combination coefficients. The resulting optimization problem is more involved than those of multiple scalar-valued kernel learning since operator-valued kernels pose more technical and theoretical issues. We propose a multiple operator-valued kernel learning algorithm based on solving a system of linear operator equations by using a block coordinatedescent procedure. We experimentally validate our approach on a functional regression task in the context of finger movement prediction in brain-computer interfaces.
1203.1643
Coding Delay Analysis of Chunked Codes over Line Networks
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we analyze the coding delay and the average coding delay of Chunked network Codes (CC) over line networks with Bernoulli losses and deterministic regular or Poisson transmissions. Chunked codes are an attractive alternative to random linear network codes due to their lower complexity. Our results, which include upper bounds on the delay and the average delay, are the first of their kind for CC over networks with such probabilistic traffics. These results demonstrate that a stand-alone CC or a precoded CC provides a better tradeoff between the computational complexity and the convergence speed to the network capacity over the probabilistic traffics compared to arbitrary deterministic traffics. The performance of CC over the latter traffics has already been studied in the literature.
1203.1647
A Survey of Prediction Using Social Media
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Social media comprises interactive applications and platforms for creating, sharing and exchange of user-generated contents. The past ten years have brought huge growth in social media, especially online social networking services, and it is changing our ways to organize and communicate. It aggregates opinions and feelings of diverse groups of people at low cost. Mining the attributes and contents of social media gives us an opportunity to discover social structure characteristics, analyze action patterns qualitatively and quantitatively, and sometimes the ability to predict future human related events. In this paper, we firstly discuss the realms which can be predicted with current social media, then overview available predictors and techniques of prediction, and finally discuss challenges and possible future directions.
1203.1685
Statistical Function Tagging and Grammatical Relations of Myanmar Sentences
cs.CL
This paper describes a context free grammar (CFG) based grammatical relations for Myanmar sentences which combine corpus-based function tagging system. Part of the challenge of statistical function tagging for Myanmar sentences comes from the fact that Myanmar has free-phrase-order and a complex morphological system. Function tagging is a pre-processing step to show grammatical relations of Myanmar sentences. In the task of function tagging, which tags the function of Myanmar sentences with correct segmentation, POS (part-of-speech) tagging and chunking information, we use Naive Bayesian theory to disambiguate the possible function tags of a word. We apply context free grammar (CFG) to find out the grammatical relations of the function tags. We also create a functional annotated tagged corpus for Myanmar and propose the grammar rules for Myanmar sentences. Experiments show that our analysis achieves a good result with simple sentences and complex sentences.
1203.1687
An Analytical Approach to the Adoption of Asymmetric Bidirectional Firewalls: Need for Regulation?
cs.SY math.OC
Recent incidents of cybersecurity violations have revealed the importance of having firewalls and other intrusion detection systems to monitor traffic entering and leaving access networks. But the adoption of such security measures is often stymied by `free-riding' effects and `shortsightedness' among Internet service providers (ISPs). In this work, we develop an analytical framework that not only accounts for these issues but also incorporates technological factors, like asymmetries in the performance of bidirectional firewalls. Results on the equilibrium adoption and stability are presented, along with detailed analysis on several policy issues related to social welfare, price of anarchy, and price of shortsightedness.
1203.1711
Quantization Reference Voltage of the Modulated Wideband Converter
cs.IT math.IT
The Modulated Wideband Converter (MWC) is a recently proposed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) based on Compressive Sensing (CS) theory. Unlike conventional ADCs, its quantization reference voltage, which is important to the system performance, does not equal the maximum amplitude of original analog signal. In this paper, the quantization reference voltage of the MWC is theoretically analyzed and the conclusion demonstrates that the reference voltage is proportional to the square root of $q$, which is a trade-off parameter between sampling rate and number of channels. Further discussions and simulation results show that the reference voltage is proportional to the square root of $Nq$ when the signal consists of $N$ narrowband signals.
1203.1714
Efficient Recovery of Block Sparse Signals via Zero-point Attracting Projection
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider compressed sensing (CS) of block-sparse signals, i.e., sparse signals that have nonzero coefficients occurring in clusters. An efficient algorithm, called zero-point attracting projection (ZAP) algorithm, is extended to the scenario of block CS. The block version of ZAP algorithm employs an approximate $l_{2,0}$ norm as the cost function, and finds its minimum in the solution space via iterations. For block sparse signals, an analysis of the stability of the local minimums of this cost function under the perturbation of noise reveals an advantage of the proposed algorithm over its original non-block version in terms of reconstruction error. Finally, numerical experiments show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other state of the art methods for the block sparse problem in various respects, especially the stability under noise.
1203.1740
An Input-Output Simulation Approach to Controlling Multi-AffineSystems for Linear Temporal Logic Specifications
cs.SY
This paper presents an input-output simulation approach to controlling multi-affine systems for linear temporal logic (LTL) specifications, which consists of the following steps. First, we partition the state space into rectangles, each of which satisfies atomic LTL propositions. Then, we study the control of multi-affine systems on rectangles including the control of driving all trajectories starting from a rectangle to exit through a facet and the control of stabilizing the system towards a desired point. With the proposed controllers, a finitely abstracted transition system is constructed which is shown to be input-output simulated by the rectangular transition system of the multi-affine system. Since input-output simulation preserves LTL properties, the controller synthesis of the multi-affine system for LTL specifications is achieved by designing a nonblocking supervisor for the abstracted transition system and by continuously implementing the resulting supervisor for the original multi-affine system.
1203.1743
Variable types for meaning assembly: a logical syntax for generic noun phrases introduced by most
math.LO cs.CL cs.LO
This paper proposes a way to compute the meanings associated with sentences with generic noun phrases corresponding to the generalized quantifier most. We call these generics specimens and they resemble stereotypes or prototypes in lexical semantics. The meanings are viewed as logical formulae that can thereafter be interpreted in your favourite models. To do so, we depart significantly from the dominant Fregean view with a single untyped universe. Indeed, our proposal adopts type theory with some hints from Hilbert \epsilon-calculus (Hilbert, 1922; Avigad and Zach, 2008) and from medieval philosophy, see e.g. de Libera (1993, 1996). Our type theoretic analysis bears some resemblance with ongoing work in lexical semantics (Asher 2011; Bassac et al. 2010; Moot, Pr\'evot and Retor\'e 2011). Our model also applies to classical examples involving a class, or a generic element of this class, which is not uttered but provided by the context. An outcome of this study is that, in the minimalism-contextualism debate, see Conrad (2011), if one adopts a type theoretical view, terms encode the purely semantic meaning component while their typing is pragmatically determined.
1203.1745
Bisimilarity Enforcing Supervisory Control for Deterministic Specifications
cs.SY
This paper investigates the supervisory control of nondeterministic discrete event systems to enforce bisimilarity with respect to deterministic specifications. A notion of synchronous simulation-based controllability is introduced as a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a bisimilarity enforcing supervisor, and a polynomial algorithm is developed to verify such a condition. When the existence condition holds, a supervisor achieving bisimulation equivalence is constructed. Furthermore, when the existence condition does not hold, two different methods are provided for synthesizing maximal permissive sub-specifications.
1203.1751
Remote Sensing and Control for Establishing and Maintaining Digital Irrigation
cs.SY
The remotely sensed data from an unknown location is transmitted in real time through internet and gathered in a PC. The data is collected for a considerable period of time and analyzed in PC as to assess the suitability and fertility of the land for establishing an electronic plantation in that area. The analysis also helps deciding the plantation of appropriate plants in the location identified. The system performing this task with appropriate transducers installed in remote area, the methodologies involved in transmission and data gathering are reported.. The second part of the project deals with data gathering from remote site and issuing control signals to remote appliances in the site; all performed through internet. Therefore, this control scheme is a duplex system monitoring the irrigation activities by collecting data in one direction and issuing commands on the opposite direction. This scheme maintains the digital irrigation systems effectively and efficiently as to utilize the resources optimally for yielding enhanced production. The methodologies involved in extending the two way communication of data are presented.
1203.1758
Coordinated Beamforming with Relaxed Zero Forcing: The Sequential Orthogonal Projection Combining Method and Rate Control
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, coordinated beamforming based on relaxed zero forcing (RZF) for K transmitter-receiver pair multiple-input single-output (MISO) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) interference channels is considered. In the RZF coordinated beamforming, conventional zero-forcing interference leakage constraints are relaxed so that some predetermined interference leakage to undesired receivers is allowed in order to increase the beam design space for larger rates than those of the zero-forcing (ZF) scheme or to make beam design feasible when ZF is impossible. In the MISO case, it is shown that the rate-maximizing beam vector under the RZF framework for a given set of interference leakage levels can be obtained by sequential orthogonal projection combining (SOPC). Based on this, exact and approximate closed-form solutions are provided in two-user and three-user cases, respectively, and an efficient beam design algorithm for RZF coordinated beamforming is provided in general cases. Furthermore, the rate control problem under the RZF framework is considered. A centralized approach and a distributed heuristic approach are proposed to control the position of the designed rate-tuple in the achievable rate region. Finally, the RZF framework is extended to MIMO interference channels by deriving a new lower bound on the rate of each user.
1203.1765
A comparative evaluation of two algorithms of detection of masses on mammograms
cs.CV
In this paper, we implement and carry out the comparison of two methods of computer-aided-detection of masses on mammograms. The two algorithms basically consist of 3 steps each: segmentation, binarization and noise suppression using different techniques for each step. A database of 60 images was used to compare the performance of the two algorithms in terms of general detection efficiency, conservation of size and shape of detected masses.
1203.1793
Using Hausdorff Distance for New Medical Image Annotation
cs.IR cs.CV
Medical images annotation is most of the time a repetitive hard task. Collecting old similar annotations and assigning them to new medical images may not only enhance the annotation process, but also reduce ambiguity caused by repetitive annotations. The goal of this work is to propose an approach based on Hausdorff distance able to compute similarity between a new medical image and old stored images. User has to choose then one of the similar images and annotations related to the selected one are assigned to the new one.
1203.1804
Near-Optimal Compressive Binary Search
cs.IT math.IT
We propose a simple modification to the recently proposed compressive binary search. The modification removes an unnecessary and suboptimal factor of log log n from the SNR requirement, making the procedure optimal (up to a small constant). Simulations show that the new procedure performs significantly better in practice as well. We also contrast this problem with the more well known problem of noisy binary search.
1203.1820
Flow-based reputation: more than just ranking
cs.CY cs.SI physics.soc-ph
The last years have seen a growing interest in collaborative systems like electronic marketplaces and P2P file sharing systems where people are intended to interact with other people. Those systems, however, are subject to security and operational risks because of their open and distributed nature. Reputation systems provide a mechanism to reduce such risks by building trust relationships among entities and identifying malicious entities. A popular reputation model is the so called flow-based model. Most existing reputation systems based on such a model provide only a ranking, without absolute reputation values; this makes it difficult to determine whether entities are actually trustworthy or untrustworthy. In addition, those systems ignore a significant part of the available information; as a consequence, reputation values may not be accurate. In this paper, we present a flow-based reputation metric that gives absolute values instead of merely a ranking. Our metric makes use of all the available information. We study, both analytically and numerically, the properties of the proposed metric and the effect of attacks on reputation values.
1203.1823
Enhancement Techniques for Local Content Preservation and Contrast Improvement in Images
cs.CV cs.MM
There are several images that do not have uniform brightness which pose a challenging problem for image enhancement systems. As histogram equalization has been successfully used to correct for uniform brightness problems, a histogram equalization method that utilizes human visual system based thresholding(human vision thresholding) as well as logarithmic processing techniques were introduced later . But these methods are not good for preserving the local content of the image which is a major factor for various images like medical and aerial images. Therefore new method is proposed here. This method is referred as "Human vision thresholding with enhancement technique for dark blurred images for local content preservation". It uses human vision thresholding together with an existing enhancement method for dark blurred images. Furthermore a comparative study with another method for local content preservation is done which is further extended to make it suitable for contrast improvement. Experimental results shows that the proposed methods outperforms the former existing methods in preserving the local content for standard images, medical and aerial images.
1203.1833
Crowdsourcing Predictors of Behavioral Outcomes
cs.CY cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Generating models from large data sets -- and determining which subsets of data to mine -- is becoming increasingly automated. However choosing what data to collect in the first place requires human intuition or experience, usually supplied by a domain expert. This paper describes a new approach to machine science which demonstrates for the first time that non-domain experts can collectively formulate features, and provide values for those features such that they are predictive of some behavioral outcome of interest. This was accomplished by building a web platform in which human groups interact to both respond to questions likely to help predict a behavioral outcome and pose new questions to their peers. This results in a dynamically-growing online survey, but the result of this cooperative behavior also leads to models that can predict user's outcomes based on their responses to the user-generated survey questions. Here we describe two web-based experiments that instantiate this approach: the first site led to models that can predict users' monthly electric energy consumption; the other led to models that can predict users' body mass index. As exponential increases in content are often observed in successful online collaborative communities, the proposed methodology may, in the future, lead to similar exponential rises in discovery and insight into the causal factors of behavioral outcomes.
1203.1849
Enumeration of Splitting Subspaces over Finite Fields
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
We discuss an elementary, yet unsolved, problem of Niederreiter concerning the enumeration of a class of subspaces of finite dimensional vector spaces over finite fields. A short and self-contained account of some recent progress on this problem is included and some related problems are discussed.
1203.1850
On Pseudocodewords and Improved Union Bound of Linear Programming Decoding of HDPC Codes
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we present an improved union bound on the Linear Programming (LP) decoding performance of the binary linear codes transmitted over an additive white Gaussian noise channels. The bounding technique is based on the second-order of Bonferroni-type inequality in probability theory, and it is minimized by Prim's minimum spanning tree algorithm. The bound calculation needs the fundamental cone generators of a given parity-check matrix rather than only their weight spectrum, but involves relatively low computational complexity. It is targeted to high-density parity-check codes, where the number of their generators is extremely large and these generators are spread densely in the Euclidean space. We explore the generator density and make a comparison between different parity-check matrix representations. That density effects on the improvement of the proposed bound over the conventional LP union bound. The paper also presents a complete pseudo-weight distribution of the fundamental cone generators for the BCH[31,21,5] code.
1203.1854
Local-Optimality Guarantees for Optimal Decoding Based on Paths
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
This paper presents a unified analysis framework that captures recent advances in the study of local-optimality characterizations for codes on graphs. These local-optimality characterizations are based on combinatorial structures embedded in the Tanner graph of the code. Local-optimality implies both unique maximum-likelihood (ML) optimality and unique linear-programming (LP) decoding optimality. Also, an iterative message-passing decoding algorithm is guaranteed to find the unique locally-optimal codeword, if one exists. We demonstrate this proof technique by considering a definition of local-optimality that is based on the simplest combinatorial structures in Tanner graphs, namely, paths of length $h$. We apply the technique of local-optimality to a family of Tanner codes. Inverse polynomial bounds in the code length are proved on the word error probability of LP-decoding for this family of Tanner codes.
1203.1858
Distributional Measures of Semantic Distance: A Survey
cs.CL
The ability to mimic human notions of semantic distance has widespread applications. Some measures rely only on raw text (distributional measures) and some rely on knowledge sources such as WordNet. Although extensive studies have been performed to compare WordNet-based measures with human judgment, the use of distributional measures as proxies to estimate semantic distance has received little attention. Even though they have traditionally performed poorly when compared to WordNet-based measures, they lay claim to certain uniquely attractive features, such as their applicability in resource-poor languages and their ability to mimic both semantic similarity and semantic relatedness. Therefore, this paper presents a detailed study of distributional measures. Particular attention is paid to flesh out the strengths and limitations of both WordNet-based and distributional measures, and how distributional measures of distance can be brought more in line with human notions of semantic distance. We conclude with a brief discussion of recent work on hybrid measures.
1203.1868
Broadcasters and Hidden Influentials in Online Protest Diffusion
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
This paper explores the growth of online mobilizations using data from the 'indignados' (the 'outraged') movement in Spain, which emerged under the influence of the revolution in Egypt and as a precursor to the global Occupy mobilizations. The data tracks Twitter activity around the protests that took place in May 2011, which led to the formation of camp sites in dozens of cities all over the country and massive daily demonstrations during the week prior to the elections of May 22. We reconstruct the network of tens of thousands of users, and monitor their message activity for a month (25 April 2011 to 25 May 2011). Using both the structure of the network and levels of activity in message exchange, we identify four types of users and we analyze their role in the growth of the protest. Drawing from theories of online collective action and research on information diffusion in networks the paper centers on the following questions: How does protest information spread in online networks? How do different actors contribute to that diffusion? How do mainstream media interact with new media? Do they help amplify protest messages? And what is the role of less popular but far more frequent users in the growth of online mobilizations? This paper aims to inform the theoretical debate on whether digital technologies are changing the logic of collective action, and provide evidence of how new media facilitates the coordination of offline mobilizations.
1203.1869
Degraded Broadcast Diamond Channels with Non-Causal State Information at the Source
cs.IT math.IT
A state-dependent degraded broadcast diamond channel is studied where the source-to-relays cut is modeled with two noiseless, finite-capacity digital links with a degraded broadcasting structure, while the relays-to-destination cut is a general multiple access channel controlled by a random state. It is assumed that the source has non-causal channel state information and the relays have no state information. Under this model, first, the capacity is characterized for the case where the destination has state information, i.e., has access to the state sequence. It is demonstrated that in this case, a joint message and state transmission scheme via binning is optimal. Next, the case where the destination does not have state information, i.e., the case with state information at the source only, is considered. For this scenario, lower and upper bounds on the capacity are derived for the general discrete memoryless model. Achievable rates are then computed for the case in which the relays-to-destination cut is affected by an additive Gaussian state. Numerical results are provided that illuminate the performance advantages that can be accrued by leveraging non-causal state information at the source.
1203.1878
Outlier detection from ETL Execution trace
cs.DB
Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is an integral part of Data Warehousing (DW) implementation. The commercial tools that are used for this purpose captures lot of execution trace in form of various log files with plethora of information. However there has been hardly any initiative where any proactive analyses have been done on the ETL logs to improve their efficiency. In this paper we utilize outlier detection technique to find the processes varying most from the group in terms of execution trace. As our experiment was carried on actual production processes, any outlier we would consider as a signal rather than a noise. To identify the input parameters for the outlier detection algorithm we employ a survey among developer community with varied mix of experience and expertise. We use simple text parsing to extract these features from the logs, as shortlisted from the survey. Subsequently we applied outlier detection technique (Clustering based) on the logs. By this process we reduced our domain of detailed analysis from 500 logs to 44 logs (8 Percentage). Among the 5 outlier cluster, 2 of them are genuine concern, while the other 3 figure out because of the huge number of rows involved.
1203.1882
Multi source feedback based performance appraisal system using Fuzzy logic decision support system
cs.AI
In Multi-Source Feedback or 360 Degree Feedback, data on the performance of an individual are collected systematically from a number of stakeholders and are used for improving performance. The 360-Degree Feedback approach provides a consistent management philosophy meeting the criterion outlined previously. The 360-degree feedback appraisal process describes a human resource methodology that is frequently used for both employee appraisal and employee development. Used in employee performance appraisals, the 360-degree feedback methodology is differentiated from traditional, top-down appraisal methods in which the supervisor responsible for the appraisal provides the majority of the data. Instead it seeks to use information gained from other sources to provide a fuller picture of employees' performances. Similarly, when this technique used in employee development it augments employees' perceptions of training needs with those of the people with whom they interact. The 360-degree feedback based appraisal is a comprehensive method where in the feedback about the employee comes from all the sources that come into contact with the employee on his/her job. The respondents for an employee can be her/his peers, managers, subordinates team members, customers, suppliers and vendors. Hence anyone who comes into contact with the employee, the 360 degree appraisal has four components that include self-appraisal, superior's appraisal, subordinate's appraisal student's appraisal and peer's appraisal .The proposed system is an attempt to implement the 360 degree feedback based appraisal system in academics especially engineering colleges.
1203.1889
Distributional Measures as Proxies for Semantic Relatedness
cs.CL
The automatic ranking of word pairs as per their semantic relatedness and ability to mimic human notions of semantic relatedness has widespread applications. Measures that rely on raw data (distributional measures) and those that use knowledge-rich ontologies both exist. Although extensive studies have been performed to compare ontological measures with human judgment, the distributional measures have primarily been evaluated by indirect means. This paper is a detailed study of some of the major distributional measures; it lists their respective merits and limitations. New measures that overcome these drawbacks, that are more in line with the human notions of semantic relatedness, are suggested. The paper concludes with an exhaustive comparison of the distributional and ontology-based measures. Along the way, significant research problems are identified. Work on these problems may lead to a better understanding of how semantic relatedness is to be measured.
1203.1892
Restricted Isometry Property in Quantized Network Coding of Sparse Messages
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study joint network coding and distributed source coding of inter-node dependent messages, with the perspective of compressed sensing. Specifically, the theoretical guarantees for robust $\ell_1$-min recovery of an under-determined set of linear network coded sparse messages are investigated. We discuss the guarantees for $\ell_1$-min decoding of quantized network coded messages, using the proposed local network coding coefficients in \cite{naba}, based on Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) of the resulting measurement matrix. Moreover, the relation between tail probability of $\ell_2$-norms and satisfaction of RIP is derived and used to compare our designed measurement matrix, with i.i.d. Gaussian measurement matrix. Finally, we present our numerical evaluations, which shows that the proposed design of network coding coefficients result in a measurement matrix with an RIP behavior, similar to that of i.i.d. Gaussian matrix.
1203.1952
Worst-case Optimal Join Algorithms
cs.DB cs.DS math.CO
Efficient join processing is one of the most fundamental and well-studied tasks in database research. In this work, we examine algorithms for natural join queries over many relations and describe a novel algorithm to process these queries optimally in terms of worst-case data complexity. Our result builds on recent work by Atserias, Grohe, and Marx, who gave bounds on the size of a full conjunctive query in terms of the sizes of the individual relations in the body of the query. These bounds, however, are not constructive: they rely on Shearer's entropy inequality which is information-theoretic. Thus, the previous results leave open the question of whether there exist algorithms whose running time achieve these optimal bounds. An answer to this question may be interesting to database practice, as it is known that any algorithm based on the traditional select-project-join style plans typically employed in an RDBMS are asymptotically slower than the optimal for some queries. We construct an algorithm whose running time is worst-case optimal for all natural join queries. Our result may be of independent interest, as our algorithm also yields a constructive proof of the general fractional cover bound by Atserias, Grohe, and Marx without using Shearer's inequality. This bound implies two famous inequalities in geometry: the Loomis-Whitney inequality and the Bollob\'as-Thomason inequality. Hence, our results algorithmically prove these inequalities as well. Finally, we discuss how our algorithm can be used to compute a relaxed notion of joins.
1203.1985
Substructure and Boundary Modeling for Continuous Action Recognition
cs.CV
This paper introduces a probabilistic graphical model for continuous action recognition with two novel components: substructure transition model and discriminative boundary model. The first component encodes the sparse and global temporal transition prior between action primitives in state-space model to handle the large spatial-temporal variations within an action class. The second component enforces the action duration constraint in a discriminative way to locate the transition boundaries between actions more accurately. The two components are integrated into a unified graphical structure to enable effective training and inference. Our comprehensive experimental results on both public and in-house datasets show that, with the capability to incorporate additional information that had not been explicitly or efficiently modeled by previous methods, our proposed algorithm achieved significantly improved performance for continuous action recognition.