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1208.6063
Nonlinear spread of rumor and inoculation strategies in the nodes with degree dependent tie strength in complex networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
In earlier rumor spreading models, at each time step nodes contact all of their neighbors. In more realistic scenario it is possible that a node may contact only some of its neighbors to spread the rumor. Therefore it is must in real world complex networks, the classic rumor spreading model need to be modified to consider the dependence of rumor spread rate on the degree of the spreader and the informed nodes. We have given a modified rumor spreading model to accommodate these facts. This new model, has been studied for rumor spreading in complex networks in this work. Nonlinear rumor spread exponent $\alpha$ and degree dependent tie strength exponent $\beta$ in any complex network gives rumor threshold as some finite value. In the present work, the modified rumor spreading model has been studied in scale free networks. It is also found that if $ \alpha $ and $ \beta $ parameters are tuned to appropriate value, the rumor threshold becomes independent of network size. In any social network, rumors can spread may have undesirable effect. One of the possible solutions to control rumor spread, is to inoculate a certain fraction of nodes against rumors. The inoculation can be done randomly or in a targeted fashion. We have used modified rumor spreading model over scale free networks to investigate the efficacy of inoculation. Random and targeted inoculation schemes have been applied. It has been observed that rumor threshold in random inoculation scheme is greater than the rumor threshold in the model without any inoculation scheme. But random inoculation is not that much effective. The rumor threshold in targeted inoculation is very high than the rumor threshold in the random inoculation in suppressing the rumor.
1208.6064
Minimax Linear Quadratic Gaussian Control of Nonlinear MIMO System with Time Varying Uncertainties
cs.SY
In this paper, a robust nonlinear control scheme is proposed for a nonlinear multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system subject to bounded time varying uncertainty which satisfies a certain integral quadratic constraint condition. The scheme develops a robust feedback linarization approach which uses standard feedback linearization approach to linearize the nominal nonlinear dynamics of the uncertain nonlinear system and linearizes the nonlinear time varying uncertainties at an arbitrary point using the mean value theorem. This approach transforms uncertain nonlinear MIMO systems into an equivalent MIMO linear uncertain system model with unstructured uncertainty. Finally, a robust minimax linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control design is proposed for the linearized model. The scheme guarantees the internal stability of the closed loop system and provides robust performance. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach, the proposed method is applied to a tracking control problem for an air-breathing hypersonic flight vehicle (AHFV).
1208.6067
Efficient Touch Based Localization through Submodularity
cs.RO
Many robotic systems deal with uncertainty by performing a sequence of information gathering actions. In this work, we focus on the problem of efficiently constructing such a sequence by drawing an explicit connection to submodularity. Ideally, we would like a method that finds the optimal sequence, taking the minimum amount of time while providing sufficient information. Finding this sequence, however, is generally intractable. As a result, many well-established methods select actions greedily. Surprisingly, this often performs well. Our work first explains this high performance -- we note a commonly used metric, reduction of Shannon entropy, is submodular under certain assumptions, rendering the greedy solution comparable to the optimal plan in the offline setting. However, reacting online to observations can increase performance. Recently developed notions of adaptive submodularity provide guarantees for a greedy algorithm in this online setting. In this work, we develop new methods based on adaptive submodularity for selecting a sequence of information gathering actions online. In addition to providing guarantees, we can capitalize on submodularity to attain additional computational speedups. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods in simulation and on a robot.
1208.6094
The Cycle Consistency Matrix Approach to Absorbing Sets in Separable Circulant-Based LDPC Codes
cs.IT math.IT
For LDPC codes operating over additive white Gaussian noise channels and decoded using message-passing decoders with limited precision, absorbing sets have been shown to be a key factor in error floor behavior. Focusing on this scenario, this paper introduces the cycle consistency matrix (CCM) as a powerful analytical tool for characterizing and avoiding absorbing sets in separable circulant-based (SCB) LDPC codes. SCB codes include a wide variety of regular LDPC codes such as array-based LDPC codes as well as many common quasi-cyclic codes. As a consequence of its cycle structure, each potential absorbing set in an SCB LDPC code has a CCM, and an absorbing set can be present in an SCB LDPC code only if the associated CCM has a nontrivial null space. CCM-based analysis can determine the multiplicity of an absorbing set in an SCB code and CCM-based constructions avoid certain small absorbing sets completely. While these techniques can be applied to an SCB code of any rate, lower-rate SCB codes can usually avoid small absorbing sets because of their higher variable node degree. This paper focuses attention on the high-rate scenario in which the CCM constructions provide the most benefit. Simulation results demonstrate that under limited-precision decoding the new codes have steeper error-floor slopes and can provide one order of magnitude of improvement in the low FER region.
1208.6106
Epistemic Temporal Logic for Information Flow Security
cs.CR cs.LO cs.MA
Temporal epistemic logic is a well-established framework for expressing agents knowledge and how it evolves over time. Within language-based security these are central issues, for instance in the context of declassification. We propose to bring these two areas together. The paper presents a computational model and an epistemic temporal logic used to reason about knowledge acquired by observing program outputs. This approach is shown to elegantly capture standard notions of noninterference and declassification in the literature as well as information flow properties where sensitive and public data intermingle in delicate ways.
1208.6109
Average word length dynamics as indicator of cultural changes in society
cs.CL
Dynamics of average length of words in Russian and English is analysed in the article. Words belonging to the diachronic text corpus Google Books Ngram and dated back to the last two centuries are studied. It was found out that average word length slightly increased in the 19th century, and then it was growing rapidly most of the 20th century and started decreasing over the period from the end of the 20th - to the beginning of the 21th century. Words which contributed mostly to increase or decrease of word average length were identified. At that, content words and functional words are analysed separately. Long content words contribute mostly to word average length of word. As it was shown, these words reflect the main tendencies of social development and thus, are used frequently. Change of frequency of personal pronouns also contributes significantly to change of average word length. The other parameters connected with average length of word were also analysed.
1208.6119
Improving information filtering via network manipulation
physics.soc-ph cs.SI physics.data-an
Recommender system is a very promising way to address the problem of overabundant information for online users. Though the information filtering for the online commercial systems received much attention recently, almost all of the previous works are dedicated to design new algorithms and consider the user-item bipartite networks as given and constant information. However, many problems for recommender systems such as the cold-start problem (i.e. low recommendation accuracy for the small degree items) are actually due to the limitation of the underlying user-item bipartite networks. In this letter, we propose a strategy to enhance the performance of the already existing recommendation algorithms by directly manipulating the user-item bipartite networks, namely adding some virtual connections to the networks. Numerical analyses on two benchmark data sets, MovieLens and Netflix, show that our method can remarkably improve the recommendation performance. Specifically, it not only improve the recommendations accuracy (especially for the small degree items), but also help the recommender systems generate more diverse and novel recommendations.
1208.6125
Bounded-Contention Coding for Wireless Networks in the High SNR Regime
cs.NI cs.DC cs.DS cs.IT math.IT
Efficient communication in wireless networks is typically challenged by the possibility of interference among several transmitting nodes. Much important research has been invested in decreasing the number of collisions in order to obtain faster algorithms for communication in such networks. This paper proposes a novel approach for wireless communication, which embraces collisions rather than avoiding them, over an additive channel. It introduces a coding technique called Bounded-Contention Coding (BCC) that allows collisions to be successfully decoded by the receiving nodes into the original transmissions and whose complexity depends on a bound on the contention among the transmitters. BCC enables deterministic local broadcast in a network with n nodes and at most a transmitters with information of l bits each within O(a log n + al) bits of communication with full-duplex radios, and O((a log n + al)(log n)) bits, with high probability, with half-duplex radios. When combined with random linear network coding, BCC gives global broadcast within O((D + a + log n)(a log n + l)) bits, with high probability. This also holds in dynamic networks that can change arbitrarily over time by a worst-case adversary. When no bound on the contention is given, it is shown how to probabilistically estimate it and obtain global broadcast that is adaptive to the true contention in the network.
1208.6137
Benchmarking recognition results on word image datasets
cs.CV
We have benchmarked the maximum obtainable recognition accuracy on various word image datasets using manual segmentation and a currently available commercial OCR. We have developed a Matlab program, with graphical user interface, for semi-automated pixel level segmentation of word images. We discuss the advantages of pixel level annotation. We have covered five databases adding up to over 3600 word images. These word images have been cropped from camera captured scene, born-digital and street view images. We recognize the segmented word image using the trial version of Nuance Omnipage OCR. We also discuss, how the degradations introduced during acquisition or inaccuracies introduced during creation of word images affect the recognition of the word present in the image. Word images for different kinds of degradations and correction for slant and curvy nature of words are also discussed. The word recognition rates obtained on ICDAR 2003, Sign evaluation, Street view, Born-digital and ICDAR 2011 datasets are 83.9%, 89.3%, 79.6%, 88.5% and 86.7% respectively.
1208.6157
Resampling effects on significance analysis of network clustering and ranking
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Community detection helps us simplify the complex configuration of networks, but communities are reliable only if they are statistically significant. To detect statistically significant communities, a common approach is to resample the original network and analyze the communities. But resampling assumes independence between samples, while the components of a network are inherently dependent. Therefore, we must understand how breaking dependencies between resampled components affects the results of the significance analysis. Here we use scientific communication as a model system to analyze this effect. Our dataset includes citations among articles published in journals in the years 1984-2010. We compare parametric resampling of citations with non-parametric article resampling. While citation resampling breaks link dependencies, article resampling maintains such dependencies. We find that citation resampling underestimates the variance of link weights. Moreover, this underestimation explains most of the differences in the significance analysis of ranking and clustering. Therefore, when only link weights are available and article resampling is not an option, we suggest a simple parametric resampling scheme that generates link-weight variances close to the link-weight variances of article resampling. Nevertheless, when we highlight and summarize important structural changes in science, the more dependencies we can maintain in the resampling scheme, the earlier we can predict structural change.
1208.6189
Preserving Link Privacy in Social Network Based Systems
cs.CR cs.SI
A growing body of research leverages social network based trust relationships to improve the functionality of the system. However, these systems expose users' trust relationships, which is considered sensitive information in today's society, to an adversary. In this work, we make the following contributions. First, we propose an algorithm that perturbs the structure of a social graph in order to provide link privacy, at the cost of slight reduction in the utility of the social graph. Second we define general metrics for characterizing the utility and privacy of perturbed graphs. Third, we evaluate the utility and privacy of our proposed algorithm using real world social graphs. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our perturbation algorithm on a broad range of secure systems, including Sybil defenses and secure routing.
1208.6231
Link Prediction via Generalized Coupled Tensor Factorisation
cs.LG
This study deals with the missing link prediction problem: the problem of predicting the existence of missing connections between entities of interest. We address link prediction using coupled analysis of relational datasets represented as heterogeneous data, i.e., datasets in the form of matrices and higher-order tensors. We propose to use an approach based on probabilistic interpretation of tensor factorisation models, i.e., Generalised Coupled Tensor Factorisation, which can simultaneously fit a large class of tensor models to higher-order tensors/matrices with com- mon latent factors using different loss functions. Numerical experiments demonstrate that joint analysis of data from multiple sources via coupled factorisation improves the link prediction performance and the selection of right loss function and tensor model is crucial for accurately predicting missing links.
1208.6247
Solving Quadratic Equations via PhaseLift when There Are About As Many Equations As Unknowns
cs.IT math.IT math.NA
This note shows that we can recover a complex vector x in C^n exactly from on the order of n quadratic equations of the form |<a_i, x>|^2 = b_i, i = 1, ..., m, by using a semidefinite program known as PhaseLift. This improves upon earlier bounds in [3], which required the number of equations to be at least on the order of n log n. We also demonstrate optimal recovery results from noisy quadratic measurements; these results are much sharper than previously known results.
1208.6255
Hierarchy in directed random networks
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI physics.data-an
In recent years, the theory and application of complex networks have been quickly developing in a markable way due to the increasing amount of data from real systems and to the fruitful application of powerful methods used in statistical physics. Many important characteristics of social or biological systems can be described by the study of their underlying structure of interactions. Hierarchy is one of these features that can be formulated in the language of networks. In this paper we present some (qualitative) analytic results on the hierarchical properties of random network models with zero correlations and also investigate, mainly numerically, the effects of different type of correlations. The behavior of hierarchy is different in the absence and the presence of the giant components. We show that the hierarchical structure can be drastically different if there are one-point correlations in the network. We also show numerical results suggesting that hierarchy does not change monotonously with the correlations and there is an optimal level of non-zero correlations maximizing the level of hierarchy.
1208.6268
Authorship Identification in Bengali Literature: a Comparative Analysis
cs.CL cs.IR
Stylometry is the study of the unique linguistic styles and writing behaviors of individuals. It belongs to the core task of text categorization like authorship identification, plagiarism detection etc. Though reasonable number of studies have been conducted in English language, no major work has been done so far in Bengali. In this work, We will present a demonstration of authorship identification of the documents written in Bengali. We adopt a set of fine-grained stylistic features for the analysis of the text and use them to develop two different models: statistical similarity model consisting of three measures and their combination, and machine learning model with Decision Tree, Neural Network and SVM. Experimental results show that SVM outperforms other state-of-the-art methods after 10-fold cross validations. We also validate the relative importance of each stylistic feature to show that some of them remain consistently significant in every model used in this experiment.
1208.6273
Communicating Using an Energy Harvesting Transmitter: Optimum Policies Under Energy Storage Losses
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, short-term throughput optimal power allocation policies are derived for an energy harvesting transmitter with energy storage losses. In particular, the energy harvesting transmitter is equipped with a battery that loses a fraction of its stored energy. Both single user, i.e. one transmitter-one receiver, and the broadcast channel, i.e., one transmitter-multiple receiver settings are considered, initially with an infinite capacity battery. It is shown that the optimal policies for these models are threshold policies. Specifically, storing energy when harvested power is above an upper threshold, retrieving energy when harvested power is below a lower threshold, and transmitting with the harvested energy in between is shown to maximize the weighted sum-rate. It is observed that the two thresholds are related through the storage efficiency of the battery, and are nondecreasing during the transmission. The results are then extended to the case with finite battery capacity, where it is shown that a similar double-threshold structure arises but the thresholds are no longer monotonic. A dynamic program that yields an optimal online power allocation is derived, and is shown to have a similar double-threshold structure. A simpler online policy is proposed and observed to perform close to the optimal policy.
1208.6279
One-bit compressed sensing with non-Gaussian measurements
cs.IT math.IT
In one-bit compressed sensing, previous results state that sparse signals may be robustly recovered when the measurements are taken using Gaussian random vectors. In contrast to standard compressed sensing, these results are not extendable to natural non-Gaussian distributions without further assumptions, as can be demonstrated by simple counter-examples. We show that approximately sparse signals that are not extremely sparse can be accurately reconstructed from single-bit measurements sampled according to a sub-gaussian distribution, and the reconstruction comes as the solution to a convex program.
1208.6289
Lift-off dynamics in a simple jumping robot
physics.class-ph cs.RO nlin.CD
We study vertical jumping in a simple robot comprising an actuated mass-spring arrangement. The actuator frequency and phase are systematically varied to find optimal performance. Optimal jumps occur above and below (but not at) the robot's resonant frequency $f_0$. Two distinct jumping modes emerge: a simple jump which is optimal above $f_0$ is achievable with a squat maneuver, and a peculiar stutter jump which is optimal below $f_0$ is generated with a counter-movement. A simple dynamical model reveals how optimal lift-off results from non-resonant transient dynamics.
1208.6308
Distributed Cross-Layer Optimization in Wireless Networks: A Second-Order Approach
cs.NI cs.DC cs.IT cs.SY math.IT math.OC
Due to the rapidly growing scale and heterogeneity of wireless networks, the design of distributed cross-layer optimization algorithms have received significant interest from the networking research community. So far, the standard distributed cross-layer approach in the literature is based on first-order Lagrangian dual decomposition and the subgradient method, which suffers a slow convergence rate. In this paper, we make the first known attempt to develop a distributed Newton's method, which is second-order and enjoys a quadratic convergence rate. However, due to interference in wireless networks, the Hessian matrix of the cross-layer problem has an non-separable structure. As a result, developing a distributed second-order algorithm is far more challenging than its counterpart for wireline networks. Our main results in this paper are two-fold: i) For a special network setting where all links mutually interfere, we derive decentralized closed-form expressions to compute the Hessian inverse; ii) For general wireless networks where the interference relationships are arbitrary, we propose a distributed iterative matrix splitting scheme for the Hessian inverse. These results successfully lead to a new theoretical framework for cross-layer optimization in wireless networks. More importantly, our work contributes to an exciting second-order paradigm shift in wireless networks optimization theory.
1208.6310
Automated Marble Plate Classification System Based On Different Neural Network Input Training Sets and PLC Implementation
cs.NE cs.LG
The process of sorting marble plates according to their surface texture is an important task in the automated marble plate production. Nowadays some inspection systems in marble industry that automate the classification tasks are too expensive and are compatible only with specific technological equipment in the plant. In this paper a new approach to the design of an Automated Marble Plate Classification System (AMPCS),based on different neural network input training sets is proposed, aiming at high classification accuracy using simple processing and application of only standard devices. It is based on training a classification MLP neural network with three different input training sets: extracted texture histograms, Discrete Cosine and Wavelet Transform over the histograms. The algorithm is implemented in a PLC for real-time operation. The performance of the system is assessed with each one of the input training sets. The experimental test results regarding classification accuracy and quick operation are represented and discussed.
1208.6326
Pisces: Anonymous Communication Using Social Networks
cs.CR cs.NI cs.SI
The architectures of deployed anonymity systems such as Tor suffer from two key problems that limit user's trust in these systems. First, paths for anonymous communication are built without considering trust relationships between users and relays in the system. Second, the network architecture relies on a set of centralized servers. In this paper, we propose Pisces, a decentralized protocol for anonymous communications that leverages users' social links to build circuits for onion routing. We argue that such an approach greatly improves the system's resilience to attackers. A fundamental challenge in this setting is the design of a secure process to discover peers for use in a user's circuit. All existing solutions for secure peer discovery leverage structured topologies and cannot be applied to unstructured social network topologies. In Pisces, we discover peers by using random walks in the social network graph with a bias away from highly connected nodes to prevent a few nodes from dominating the circuit creation process. To secure the random walks, we leverage the reciprocal neighbor policy: if malicious nodes try to exclude honest nodes during peer discovery so as to improve the chance of being selected, then honest nodes can use a tit-for-tat approach and reciprocally exclude the malicious nodes from their routing tables. We describe a fully decentralized protocol for enforcing this policy, and use it to build the Pisces anonymity system. Using theoretical modeling and experiments on real-world social network topologies, we show that (a) the reciprocal neighbor policy mitigates active attacks that an adversary can perform, (b) our decentralized protocol to enforce this policy is secure and has low overhead, and (c) the overall anonymity provided by our system significantly outperforms existing approaches.
1208.6335
Comparative Study and Optimization of Feature-Extraction Techniques for Content based Image Retrieval
cs.CV cs.AI cs.IR cs.LG cs.MM
The aim of a Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system, also known as Query by Image Content (QBIC), is to help users to retrieve relevant images based on their contents. CBIR technologies provide a method to find images in large databases by using unique descriptors from a trained image. The image descriptors include texture, color, intensity and shape of the object inside an image. Several feature-extraction techniques viz., Average RGB, Color Moments, Co-occurrence, Local Color Histogram, Global Color Histogram and Geometric Moment have been critically compared in this paper. However, individually these techniques result in poor performance. So, combinations of these techniques have also been evaluated and results for the most efficient combination of techniques have been presented and optimized for each class of image query. We also propose an improvement in image retrieval performance by introducing the idea of Query modification through image cropping. It enables the user to identify a region of interest and modify the initial query to refine and personalize the image retrieval results.
1208.6338
A Widely Applicable Bayesian Information Criterion
cs.LG stat.ML
A statistical model or a learning machine is called regular if the map taking a parameter to a probability distribution is one-to-one and if its Fisher information matrix is always positive definite. If otherwise, it is called singular. In regular statistical models, the Bayes free energy, which is defined by the minus logarithm of Bayes marginal likelihood, can be asymptotically approximated by the Schwarz Bayes information criterion (BIC), whereas in singular models such approximation does not hold. Recently, it was proved that the Bayes free energy of a singular model is asymptotically given by a generalized formula using a birational invariant, the real log canonical threshold (RLCT), instead of half the number of parameters in BIC. Theoretical values of RLCTs in several statistical models are now being discovered based on algebraic geometrical methodology. However, it has been difficult to estimate the Bayes free energy using only training samples, because an RLCT depends on an unknown true distribution. In the present paper, we define a widely applicable Bayesian information criterion (WBIC) by the average log likelihood function over the posterior distribution with the inverse temperature $1/\log n$, where $n$ is the number of training samples. We mathematically prove that WBIC has the same asymptotic expansion as the Bayes free energy, even if a statistical model is singular for and unrealizable by a statistical model. Since WBIC can be numerically calculated without any information about a true distribution, it is a generalized version of BIC onto singular statistical models.
1208.6357
Linear Transceiver Design for a MIMO Interfering Broadcast Channel Achieving Max-Min Fairness
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of linear transceiver design to achieve max-min fairness in a downlink MIMO multicell network. This problem can be formulated as maximizing the minimum rate among all the users in an interfering broadcast channel (IBC). In this paper we show that when the number of antennas is at least two at each of the transmitters and the receivers, the min rate maximization problem is NP-hard in the number of users. Moreover, we develop a low-complexity algorithm for this problem by iteratively solving a sequence of convex subproblems, and establish its global convergence to a stationary point of the original minimum rate maximization problem. Numerical simulations show that this algorithm is efficient in achieving fairness among all the users.
1208.6379
Development of a Novel Robot for Transperineal Needle Based Interventions: Focal Therapy, Brachytherapy and Prostate Biopsies
cs.RO physics.med-ph
Purpose: We report what is to our knowledge the initial experience with a new 3-dimensional ultrasound robotic system for prostate brachytherapy assistance, focal therapy and prostate biopsies. Its ability to track prostate motion intraoperatively allows it to manage motions and guide needles to predefined targets. Materials and Methods: A robotic system was created for transrectal ultrasound guided needle implantation combined with intraoperative prostate tracking. Experiments were done on 90 targets embedded in a total of 9 mobile, deformable, synthetic prostate phantoms. Experiments involved trying to insert glass beads as close as possible to targets in multimodal anthropomorphic imaging phantoms. Results were measured by segmenting the inserted beads in computerized tomography volumes of the phantoms. Results: The robot reached the chosen targets in phantoms with a median accuracy of 2.73 mm and a median prostate motion of 5.46 mm. Accuracy was better at the apex than at the base (2.28 vs 3.83 mm, p <0.001), and similar for horizontal and angled needle inclinations (2.7 vs 2.82 mm, p = 0.18). Conclusions: To our knowledge this robot for prostate focal therapy, brachytherapy and targeted prostate biopsies is the first system to use intraoperative prostate motion tracking to guide needles into the prostate. Preliminary experiments show its ability to reach targets despite prostate motion.
1208.6388
First Clinical Experience in Urologic Surgery with a Novel Robotic Lightweight Laparoscope Holder
cs.RO physics.med-ph
Purpose: To report the feasibility and the safety of a surgeon-controlled robotic endoscope holder in laparoscopic surgery. Materials and methods: From March 2010 to September 2010, 20 patients were enrolled prospectively to undergo a laparoscopic surgery using an innovative robotic endoscope holder. Two surgeons performed 6 adrenalectomies, 4 sacrocolpopexies, 5 pyeloplasties, 4 radical prostatectomies and 1 radical nephrectomy. Demographic data, overall set-up time, operative time, number of assistants needed were reviewed. Surgeon's satisfaction regarding the ergonomics was assessed using a ten point scale. Postoperative clinical outcomes were reviewed at day 1 and 1 month postoperatively. Results: The per-protocol analysis was performed on 17 patients for whom the robot was effectively used for surgery. Median age was 63 years, 10 patients were female (59%). Median BMI was 26.8. Surgical procedures were completed with the robot in 12 cases (71 %). Median number of surgical assistant was 0. Overall set-up time with the robot was 19 min, operative time was 130 min) during which the robot was used 71% of the time. Mean hospital stay was 6.94 days $\pm$ 2.3. Median score regarding the easiness of use was 7. Median pain level was 1.5/10 at day 1 and 0 at 1 month postoperatively. Open conversion was needed in 1 case (6 %) and 4 minor complications occurred in 2 patients (12%). Conclusion: This use of this novel robotic laparoscope holder is safe, feasible and it provides a good comfort to the surgeon.
1208.6412
Adaptive Generation Method of OFDM Signals in SLM Schemes for Low-complexity
cs.IT math.IT
There are many selected mapping (SLM) schemes to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals. Beginning with the conventional SLM scheme, there have been proposed many low-complexity SLM schemes including Lim's, Wang's, and Baxely's SLM schemes typically. In this paper, we propose an adaptive generation (AG) method of OFDM signals in SLM schemes. By generating the alternative OFDM signals adaptively, unnecessary computational complexity of SLM schemes can be removed without any degradation of their PAPR reduction performance. In this paper, we apply the AG method to various SLM schemes which are the conventional SLM scheme and its low-complexity versions such as Lim's, Wang's, and Baxely's SLM schemes. Of course, the AG method can be applied to most of existing SLM schemes easily. The numerical results show that the AG method can reduce their computational complexity substantially.
1208.6416
Relational Databases and Bell's Theorem
cs.LO cs.DB quant-ph
Our aim in this paper is to point out a surprising formal connection, between two topics which seem on face value to have nothing to do with each other: relational database theory, and the study of non-locality and contextuality in the foundations of quantum mechanics. We shall show that there is a remarkably direct correspondence between central results such as Bell's theorem in the foundations of quantum mechanics, and questions which arise naturally and have been well-studied in relational database theory.
1208.6421
A Novel Service Oriented Model for Query Identification and Solution Development using Semantic Web and Multi Agent System
cs.MA cs.SE
In this paper, we propose to develop service model architecture by merging multi-agentsystems and semantic web technology. The proposed architecture works in two stages namely, Query Identification and Solution Development. A person referred to as customer will submit the problem details or requirements which will be referred to as a query. Anyone who can provide a service will need to register with the registrar module of the architecture. Services can be anything ranging from expert consultancy in the field of agriculture to academic research, from selling products to manufacturing goods, from medical help to legal issues or even providing logistics. Query submitted by customer is first parsed and then iteratively understood with the help of domain experts and the customer to get a precise set of properties. Query thus identified will be solved again with the help of intelligent agent systems which will search the semantic web for all those who can find or provide a solution. A workable solution workflow is created and then depending on the requirements, using the techniques of negotiation or auctioning, solution is implemented to complete the service for customer. This part is termed as solution development. In this service oriented architecture, we first try to analyze the complex set of user requirements then try to provide best possible solution in an optimized way by combining better information searches through semantic web and better workflow provisioning using multi agent systems.
1208.6454
Spread of Influence and Content in Mobile Opportunistic Networks
cs.SI cs.MA cs.SY
We consider a setting in which a single item of content (such as a song or a video clip) is disseminated in a population of mobile nodes by opportunistic copying when pairs of nodes come in radio contact. We propose and study models that capture the joint evolution of the population of nodes interested in the content (referred to as destinations), and the population of nodes that possess the content. The evolution of interest in the content is captured using an influence spread model and the content spread occurs via epidemic copying. Nodes not yet interested in the content are called relays; the influence spread process converts relays into destinations. We consider the decentralized setting, where interest in the content and the spread of the content evolve by pairwise interactions between the mobiles. We derive fluid limits for the joint evolution models and obtain optimal policies for copying to relay nodes in order to deliver content to a desired fraction of destinations. We prove that a time-threshold policy is optimal while copying to relays. We then provide insights into the effects of various system parameters on the co-evolution model through simulations.
1208.6464
Bayesian compressed sensing with new sparsity-inducing prior
cs.IT math.IT
Sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) is a popular approach to sparse signal recovery in compressed sensing (CS). In SBL, the signal sparsity information is exploited by assuming a sparsity-inducing prior for the signal that is then estimated using Bayesian inference. In this paper, a new sparsity-inducing prior is introduced and efficient algorithms are developed for signal recovery. The main algorithm is shown to produce a sparser solution than existing SBL methods while preserving their desirable properties. Numerical simulations with one-dimensional synthetic signals and two-dimensional images verify our analysis and show that for sparse signals the proposed algorithm outperforms its SBL peers in both the signal recovery accuracy and computational speed. Its improved performance is also demonstrated in comparison with other state-of-the-art methods in CS.
1208.6493
Shannon's sampling theorem in a distributional setting
math.FA cs.IT math.IT
The classical Shannon sampling theorem states that a signal f with Fourier transform F in L^2(R) having its support contained in (-\pi,\pi) can be recovered from the sequence of samples (f(n))_{n in Z} via f(t)=\sum_{n in Z} f(n) (sin(\pi (t -n)))/(\pi (t-n)) (t in R). In this article we prove a generalization of this result under the assumption that F is a compactly supported distribution with its support contained in (-\pi,\pi).
1208.6516
A two-stage denoising filter: the preprocessed Yaroslavsky filter
cs.CV math.ST stat.TH
This paper describes a simple image noise removal method which combines a preprocessing step with the Yaroslavsky filter for strong numerical, visual, and theoretical performance on a broad class of images. The framework developed is a two-stage approach. In the first stage the image is filtered with a classical denoising method (e.g., wavelet or curvelet thresholding). In the second stage a modification of the Yaroslavsky filter is performed on the original noisy image, where the weights of the filters are governed by pixel similarities in the denoised image from the first stage. Similar prefiltering ideas have proved effective previously in the literature, and this paper provides theoretical guarantees and important insight into why prefiltering can be effective. Empirically, this simple approach achieves very good performance for cartoon images, and can be computed much more quickly than current patch-based denoising algorithms.
1208.6523
Combinatorial Gradient Fields for 2D Images with Empirically Convergent Separatrices
cs.CV cs.CG cs.DM
This paper proposes an efficient probabilistic method that computes combinatorial gradient fields for two dimensional image data. In contrast to existing algorithms, this approach yields a geometric Morse-Smale complex that converges almost surely to its continuous counterpart when the image resolution is increased. This approach is motivated using basic ideas from probability theory and builds upon an algorithm from discrete Morse theory with a strong mathematical foundation. While a formal proof is only hinted at, we do provide a thorough numerical evaluation of our method and compare it to established algorithms.
1209.0001
An Improved Bound for the Nystrom Method for Large Eigengap
cs.LG cs.NA stat.ML
We develop an improved bound for the approximation error of the Nystr\"{o}m method under the assumption that there is a large eigengap in the spectrum of kernel matrix. This is based on the empirical observation that the eigengap has a significant impact on the approximation error of the Nystr\"{o}m method. Our approach is based on the concentration inequality of integral operator and the theory of matrix perturbation. Our analysis shows that when there is a large eigengap, we can improve the approximation error of the Nystr\"{o}m method from $O(N/m^{1/4})$ to $O(N/m^{1/2})$ when measured in Frobenius norm, where $N$ is the size of the kernel matrix, and $m$ is the number of sampled columns.
1209.0029
Statistically adaptive learning for a general class of cost functions (SA L-BFGS)
cs.LG stat.ML
We present a system that enables rapid model experimentation for tera-scale machine learning with trillions of non-zero features, billions of training examples, and millions of parameters. Our contribution to the literature is a new method (SA L-BFGS) for changing batch L-BFGS to perform in near real-time by using statistical tools to balance the contributions of previous weights, old training examples, and new training examples to achieve fast convergence with few iterations. The result is, to our knowledge, the most scalable and flexible linear learning system reported in the literature, beating standard practice with the current best system (Vowpal Wabbit and AllReduce). Using the KDD Cup 2012 data set from Tencent, Inc. we provide experimental results to verify the performance of this method.
1209.0047
The Degrees of Freedom Region of the MIMO Interference Channel with Hybrid CSIT
cs.IT math.IT
The degrees of freedom (DoF) region of the two-user MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) interference channel is established under a new model termed as hybrid CSIT. In this model, one transmitter has delayed channel state information (CSI) and the other transmitter has instantaneous CSIT, of incoming channel matrices at the respective unpaired receivers, and neither transmitter has any knowledge of the incoming channel matrices of its respective paired receiver. The DoF region for hybrid CSIT, and consequently that of $2\times2\times3^{5}$ CSIT models, is completely characterized, and a new achievable scheme based on a combination of transmit beamforming and retrospective interference alignment is developed. Conditions are obtained on the numbers of antennas at each of the four terminals such that the DoF region under hybrid CSIT is equal to that under (a) global and instantaneous CSIT and (b) global and delayed CSIT, with the remaining cases resulting in a DoF region with hybrid CSIT that lies somewhere in between the DoF regions under the instantaneous and delayed CSIT settings. Further synergistic benefits accruing from switching between the two hybrid CSIT models are also explored.
1209.0053
A Session Based Blind Watermarking Technique within the NROI of Retinal Fundus Images for Authentication Using DWT, Spread Spectrum and Harris Corner Detection
cs.CV cs.CY
Digital Retinal Fundus Images helps to detect various ophthalmic diseases by detecting morphological changes in optical cup, optical disc and macula. Present work proposes a method for the authentication of medical images based on Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) and Spread Spectrum. Proper selection of the Non Region of Interest (NROI) for watermarking is crucial, as the area under concern has to be the least required portion conveying any medical information. Proposed method discusses both the selection of least impact area and the blind watermarking technique. Watermark is embedded within the High-High (HH) sub band. During embedding, watermarked image is dispersed within the band using a pseudo random sequence and a Session key. Watermarked image is extracted using the session key and the size of the image. In this approach the generated watermarked image having an acceptable level of imperceptibility and distortion is compared to the Original retinal image based on Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and correlation value.
1209.0056
Learning implicitly in reasoning in PAC-Semantics
cs.AI cs.DS cs.LG cs.LO
We consider the problem of answering queries about formulas of propositional logic based on background knowledge partially represented explicitly as other formulas, and partially represented as partially obscured examples independently drawn from a fixed probability distribution, where the queries are answered with respect to a weaker semantics than usual -- PAC-Semantics, introduced by Valiant (2000) -- that is defined using the distribution of examples. We describe a fairly general, efficient reduction to limited versions of the decision problem for a proof system (e.g., bounded space treelike resolution, bounded degree polynomial calculus, etc.) from corresponding versions of the reasoning problem where some of the background knowledge is not explicitly given as formulas, only learnable from the examples. Crucially, we do not generate an explicit representation of the knowledge extracted from the examples, and so the "learning" of the background knowledge is only done implicitly. As a consequence, this approach can utilize formulas as background knowledge that are not perfectly valid over the distribution---essentially the analogue of agnostic learning here.
1209.0057
Anchoring Bias in Online Voting
physics.data-an cs.IR physics.soc-ph
Voting online with explicit ratings could largely reflect people's preferences and objects' qualities, but ratings are always irrational, because they may be affected by many unpredictable factors like mood, weather, as well as other people's votes. By analyzing two real systems, this paper reveals a systematic bias embedding in the individual decision-making processes, namely people tend to give a low rating after a low rating, as well as a high rating following a high rating. This so-called \emph{anchoring bias} is validated via extensive comparisons with null models, and numerically speaking, the extent of bias decays with interval voting number in a logarithmic form. Our findings could be applied in the design of recommender systems and considered as important complementary materials to previous knowledge about anchoring effects on financial trades, performance judgements, auctions, and so on.
1209.0061
Compensation of IQ-Imbalance and Phase Noise in MIMO-OFDM Systems
cs.IT math.IT
The degrading effect of RF impairments on the performance of wireless communication systems is more pronounced in MIMO-OFDM transmission. Two of the most common impairments that significantly limit the performance of MIMO-OFDM transceivers are IQ-imbalance and phase noise. Low-complexity estimation and compensation techniques that can jointly remove the effect of these impairments are highly desirable. In this paper, we propose a simple joint estimation and compensation technique to estimate channel, phase noise and IQ-imbalance parameters in MIMO-OFDM systems under multipath slow fading channels. A subcarrier multiplexed preamble structure to estimate the channel and impairment parameters with minimum overhead is introduced and used in the estimation of IQ-imbalance parameters as well as the initial estimation of effective channel matrix including common phase error (CPE). We then use a novel tracking method based on the second order statistics of the inter-carrier interference (ICI) and noise to update the effective channel matrix throughout an OFDM frame. Simulation results for a variety of scenarios show that the proposed low-complexity estimation and compensation technique can efficiently improve the performance of MIMO-OFDM systems in terms of bit-error-rate (BER).
1209.0082
Recursive quantum convolutional encoders are catastrophic: A simple proof
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
Poulin, Tillich, and Ollivier discovered an important separation between the classical and quantum theories of convolutional coding, by proving that a quantum convolutional encoder cannot be both non-catastrophic and recursive. Non-catastrophicity is desirable so that an iterative decoding algorithm converges when decoding a quantum turbo code whose constituents are quantum convolutional codes, and recursiveness is as well so that a quantum turbo code has a minimum distance growing nearly linearly with the length of the code, respectively. Their proof of the aforementioned theorem was admittedly "rather involved," and as such, it has been desirable since their result to find a simpler proof. In this paper, we furnish a proof that is arguably simpler. Our approach is group-theoretic---we show that the subgroup of memory states that are part of a zero physical-weight cycle of a quantum convolutional encoder is equivalent to the centralizer of its "finite-memory" subgroup (the subgroup of memory states which eventually reach the identity memory state by identity operator inputs for the information qubits and identity or Pauli-Z operator inputs for the ancilla qubits). After proving that this symmetry holds for any quantum convolutional encoder, it easily follows that an encoder is non-recursive if it is non-catastrophic. Our proof also illuminates why this no-go theorem does not apply to entanglement-assisted quantum convolutional encoders---the introduction of shared entanglement as a resource allows the above symmetry to be broken.
1209.0089
Estimating the historical and future probabilities of large terrorist events
physics.data-an cs.LG physics.soc-ph stat.AP stat.ME
Quantities with right-skewed distributions are ubiquitous in complex social systems, including political conflict, economics and social networks, and these systems sometimes produce extremely large events. For instance, the 9/11 terrorist events produced nearly 3000 fatalities, nearly six times more than the next largest event. But, was this enormous loss of life statistically unlikely given modern terrorism's historical record? Accurately estimating the probability of such an event is complicated by the large fluctuations in the empirical distribution's upper tail. We present a generic statistical algorithm for making such estimates, which combines semi-parametric models of tail behavior and a nonparametric bootstrap. Applied to a global database of terrorist events, we estimate the worldwide historical probability of observing at least one 9/11-sized or larger event since 1968 to be 11-35%. These results are robust to conditioning on global variations in economic development, domestic versus international events, the type of weapon used and a truncated history that stops at 1998. We then use this procedure to make a data-driven statistical forecast of at least one similar event over the next decade.
1209.0113
Using Space-Time trellis Codes For AF Relay Channels
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the analysis and design of space-time trellis codes (STTCs) for a cooperative relay channel operating in amplify-and-forward (AF) mode assuming the source and destination nodes are equipped with multiple antennas but the relay node has single antenna. We derive a pairwise error probability (PEP) expression for the performance of STTCs in this type of channels. A simple upper-bound on PEP is then derived and is maximized to find the optimum STTCs. We show that the designed STTCs based on the derived criterion achieve full diversity in the AF relay channels especially at high signal-to-noise-ratios (SNRs). The maximum achievable diversity in relay channels with single-antenna relay is bounded by $\min(M,N)$ where $M$ and $N$ are respectively the number of antennas in source and destination nodes. Simulation results confirm that the proposed codes achieve the maximum diversity and also provide an appealing coding gain.
1209.0125
A History of Cluster Analysis Using the Classification Society's Bibliography Over Four Decades
cs.DL cs.LG stat.ML
The Classification Literature Automated Search Service, an annual bibliography based on citation of one or more of a set of around 80 book or journal publications, ran from 1972 to 2012. We analyze here the years 1994 to 2011. The Classification Society's Service, as it was termed, has been produced by the Classification Society. In earlier decades it was distributed as a diskette or CD with the Journal of Classification. Among our findings are the following: an enormous increase in scholarly production post approximately 2000; a very major increase in quantity, coupled with work in different disciplines, from approximately 2004; and a major shift also from cluster analysis in earlier times having mathematics and psychology as disciplines of the journals published in, and affiliations of authors, contrasted with, in more recent times, a "centre of gravity" in management and engineering.
1209.0126
Evaluation of some Information Retrieval models for Gujarati Ad hoc Monolingual Tasks
cs.IR
This paper describes the work towards Gujarati Ad hoc Monolingual Retrieval task for widely used Information Retrieval (IR) models. We present an indexing baseline for the Gujarati Language represented by Mean Average Precision (MAP) values. Our objective is to obtain a relative picture of a better IR model for Gujarati Language. Results show that Classical IR models like Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency (TF_IDF) performs better when compared to few recent probabilistic IR models. The experiments helped to identify the outperforming IR models for Gujarati Language.
1209.0127
Autoregressive short-term prediction of turning points using support vector regression
cs.LG cs.CE cs.NE
This work is concerned with autoregressive prediction of turning points in financial price sequences. Such turning points are critical local extrema points along a series, which mark the start of new swings. Predicting the future time of such turning points or even their early or late identification slightly before or after the fact has useful applications in economics and finance. Building on recently proposed neural network model for turning point prediction, we propose and study a new autoregressive model for predicting turning points of small swings. Our method relies on a known turning point indicator, a Fourier enriched representation of price histories, and support vector regression. We empirically examine the performance of the proposed method over a long history of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Our study shows that the proposed method is superior to the previous neural network model, in terms of trading performance of a simple trading application and also exhibits a quantifiable advantage over the buy-and-hold benchmark.
1209.0136
Incremental Control Synthesis in Probabilistic Environments with Temporal Logic Constraints
cs.RO cs.LO
In this paper, we present a method for optimal control synthesis of a plant that interacts with a set of agents in a graph-like environment. The control specification is given as a temporal logic statement about some properties that hold at the vertices of the environment. The plant is assumed to be deterministic, while the agents are probabilistic Markov models. The goal is to control the plant such that the probability of satisfying a syntactically co-safe Linear Temporal Logic formula is maximized. We propose a computationally efficient incremental approach based on the fact that temporal logic verification is computationally cheaper than synthesis. We present a case-study where we compare our approach to the classical non-incremental approach in terms of computation time and memory usage.
1209.0167
Automatic ECG Beat Arrhythmia Detection
cs.NE
Background: In recent years automated data analysis techniques have drawn great attention and are used in almost every field of research including biomedical. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are one of the Computer- Aided- Diagnosis tools which are used extensively by advances in computer hardware technology. The application of these techniques for disease diagnosis has made great progress and is widely used by physicians. An Electrocardiogram carries vital information about heart activity and physicians use this signal for cardiac disease diagnosis which was the great motivation towards our study. Methods: In this study we are using Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNN) as an automatic technique for ECG signal analysis along with a Genetic Algorithm (GA). As every real signal recorded by the equipment can have different artifacts, we need to do some preprocessing steps before feeding it to the ANN. Wavelet transform is used for extracting the morphological parameters and median filter for data reduction of the ECG signal. The subset of morphological parameters are chosen and optimized using GA. We had two approaches in our investigation, the first one uses the whole signal with 289 normalized and de-noised data points as input to the ANN. In the second approach after applying all the preprocessing steps the signal is reduced to 29 data points and also their important parameters extracted to form the ANN input with 35 data points. Results: The outcome of the two approaches for 8 types of arrhythmia shows that the second approach is superior than the first one with an average accuracy of %99.42.
1209.0196
Short-time homomorphic wavelet estimation
physics.geo-ph cs.CV physics.data-an
Successful wavelet estimation is an essential step for seismic methods like impedance inversion, analysis of amplitude variations with offset and full waveform inversion. Homomorphic deconvolution has long intrigued as a potentially elegant solution to the wavelet estimation problem. Yet a successful implementation has proven difficult. Associated disadvantages like phase unwrapping and restrictions of sparsity in the reflectivity function limit its application. We explore short-time homomorphic wavelet estimation as a combination of the classical homomorphic analysis and log-spectral averaging. The introduced method of log-spectral averaging using a short-term Fourier transform increases the number of sample points, thus reducing estimation variances. We apply the developed method on synthetic and real data examples and demonstrate good performance.
1209.0219
Dynamical networks reconstructed from time series
physics.data-an cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Novel method of reconstructing dynamical networks from empirically measured time series is proposed. By examining the variable--derivative correlation of network node pairs, we derive a simple equation that directly yields the adjacency matrix, assuming the intra-network interaction functions to be known. We illustrate the method on a simple example, and discuss the dependence of the reconstruction precision on the properties of time series. Our method is applicable to any network, allowing for reconstruction precision to be maximized, and errors to be estimated.
1209.0229
Efficiency-Risk Tradeoffs in Dynamic Oligopoly Markets - with application to electricity markets
cs.SY
In this paper, we examine in an abstract framework, how a tradeoff between efficiency and robustness arises in different dynamic oligopolistic market architectures. We consider a market in which there is a monopolistic resource provider and agents that enter and exit the market following a random process. Self-interested and fully rational agents dynamically update their resource consumption decisions over a finite time horizon, under the constraint that the total resource consumption requirements are met before each individual's deadline. We then compare the statistics of the stationary aggregate demand processes induced by the non-cooperative and cooperative load scheduling schemes. We show that although the non-cooperative load scheduling scheme leads to an efficiency loss - widely known as the "price of anarchy" - the stationary distribution of the corresponding aggregate demand process has a smaller tail. This tail, which corresponds to rare and undesirable demand spikes, is important in many applications of interest. On the other hand, when the agents can cooperate with each other in optimizing their total cost, a higher market efficiency is achieved at the cost of a higher probability of demand spikes. We thus posit that the origins of endogenous risk in such systems may lie in the market architecture, which is an inherent characteristic of the system.
1209.0236
Cross-Bifix-Free Codes Within a Constant Factor of Optimality
cs.IT math.CO math.IT
A cross-bifix-free code is a set of words in which no prefix of any length of any word is the suffix of any word in the set. Cross-bifix-free codes arise in the study of distributed sequences for frame synchronization. We provide a new construction of cross-bifix-free codes which generalizes the construction in Bajic (2007) to longer code lengths and to any alphabet size. The codes are shown to be nearly optimal in size. We also establish new results on Fibonacci sequences, that are used in estimating the size of the cross-bifix-free codes.
1209.0237
Bi-stochastic kernels via asymmetric affinity functions
math.CA cs.IT math.IT math.PR math.SP
In this short letter we present the construction of a bi-stochastic kernel p for an arbitrary data set X that is derived from an asymmetric affinity function {\alpha}. The affinity function {\alpha} measures the similarity between points in X and some reference set Y. Unlike other methods that construct bi-stochastic kernels via some convergent iteration process or through solving an optimization problem, the construction presented here is quite simple. Furthermore, it can be viewed through the lens of out of sample extensions, making it useful for massive data sets.
1209.0245
Diffusion maps for changing data
math.CA cs.IT math.IT math.PR math.SP
Graph Laplacians and related nonlinear mappings into low dimensional spaces have been shown to be powerful tools for organizing high dimensional data. Here we consider a data set X in which the graph associated with it changes depending on some set of parameters. We analyze this type of data in terms of the diffusion distance and the corresponding diffusion map. As the data changes over the parameter space, the low dimensional embedding changes as well. We give a way to go between these embeddings, and furthermore, map them all into a common space, allowing one to track the evolution of X in its intrinsic geometry. A global diffusion distance is also defined, which gives a measure of the global behavior of the data over the parameter space. Approximation theorems in terms of randomly sampled data are presented, as are potential applications.
1209.0249
Robopinion: Opinion Mining Framework Inspired by Autonomous Robot Navigation
cs.CL cs.IR
Data association methods are used by autonomous robots to find matches between the current landmarks and the new set of observed features. We seek a framework for opinion mining to benefit from advancements in autonomous robot navigation in both research and development
1209.0308
Optimizing Supply Chain Management using Gravitational Search Algorithm and Multi Agent System
cs.MA cs.AI
Supply chain management is a very dynamic operation research problem where one has to quickly adapt according to the changes perceived in environment in order to maximize the benefit or minimize the loss. Therefore we require a system which changes as per the changing requirements. Multi agent system technology in recent times has emerged as a possible way of efficient solution implementation for many such complex problems. Our research here focuses on building a Multi Agent System (MAS), which implements a modified version of Gravitational Search swarm intelligence Algorithm (GSA) to find out an optimal strategy in managing the demand supply chain. We target the grains distribution system among various centers of Food Corporation of India (FCI) as application domain. We assume centers with larger stocks as objects of greater mass and vice versa. Applying Newtonian law of gravity as suggested in GSA, larger objects attract objects of smaller mass towards itself, creating a virtual grain supply source. As heavier object sheds its mass by supplying some to the one in demand, it loses its gravitational pull and thus keeps the whole system of supply chain per-fectly in balance. The multi agent system helps in continuous updation of the whole system with the help of autonomous agents which react to the change in environment and act accordingly. This model also reduces the communication bottleneck to greater extents.
1209.0320
Integrated Symbolic Design of Unstable Nonlinear Networked Control Systems
cs.SY
The research area of Networked Control Systems (NCS) has been the topic of intensive study in the last decade. In this paper we give a contribution to this research line by addressing symbolic control design of (possibly unstable) nonlinear NCS with specifications expressed in terms of automata. We first derive symbolic models that are shown to approximate the given NCS in the sense of (alternating) approximate simulation. We then address symbolic control design with specifications expressed in terms of automata. We finally derive efficient algorithms for the synthesis of the proposed symbolic controllers that cope with the inherent computational complexity of the problem at hand.
1209.0341
Structural Analysis of Viral Spreading Processes in Social and Communication Networks Using Egonets
math.OC cs.DM cs.SI cs.SY physics.soc-ph
We study how the behavior of viral spreading processes is influenced by local structural properties of the network over which they propagate. For a wide variety of spreading processes, the largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of the network plays a key role on their global dynamical behavior. For many real-world large-scale networks, it is unfeasible to exactly retrieve the complete network structure to compute its largest eigenvalue. Instead, one usually have access to myopic, egocentric views of the network structure, also called egonets. In this paper, we propose a mathematical framework, based on algebraic graph theory and convex optimization, to study how local structural properties of the network constrain the interval of possible values in which the largest eigenvalue must lie. Based on this framework, we present a computationally efficient approach to find this interval from a collection of egonets. Our numerical simulations show that, for several social and communication networks, local structural properties of the network strongly constrain the location of the largest eigenvalue and the resulting spreading dynamics. From a practical point of view, our results can be used to dictate immunization strategies to tame the spreading of a virus, or to design network topologies that facilitate the spreading of information virally.
1209.0368
Proximal methods for the latent group lasso penalty
math.OC cs.LG stat.ML
We consider a regularized least squares problem, with regularization by structured sparsity-inducing norms, which extend the usual $\ell_1$ and the group lasso penalty, by allowing the subsets to overlap. Such regularizations lead to nonsmooth problems that are difficult to optimize, and we propose in this paper a suitable version of an accelerated proximal method to solve them. We prove convergence of a nested procedure, obtained composing an accelerated proximal method with an inner algorithm for computing the proximity operator. By exploiting the geometrical properties of the penalty, we devise a new active set strategy, thanks to which the inner iteration is relatively fast, thus guaranteeing good computational performances of the overall algorithm. Our approach allows to deal with high dimensional problems without pre-processing for dimensionality reduction, leading to better computational and prediction performances with respect to the state-of-the art methods, as shown empirically both on toy and real data.
1209.0377
A Perturbation Inequality for the Schatten-$p$ Quasi-Norm and Its Applications to Low-Rank Matrix Recovery
math.OC cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we establish the following perturbation result concerning the singular values of a matrix: Let $A,B \in \mathbb{R}^{m\times n}$ be given matrices, and let $f:\mathbb{R}_+\rightarrow\mathbb{R}_+$ be a concave function satisfying $f(0)=0$. Then, we have $$ \sum_{i=1}^{\min\{m,n\}} \big| f(\sigma_i(A)) - f(\sigma_i(B)) \big| \le \sum_{i=1}^{\min\{m,n\}} f(\sigma_i(A-B)), $$ where $\sigma_i(\cdot)$ denotes the $i$--th largest singular value of a matrix. This answers an open question that is of interest to both the compressive sensing and linear algebra communities. In particular, by taking $f(\cdot)=(\cdot)^p$ for any $p \in (0,1]$, we obtain a perturbation inequality for the so--called Schatten $p$--quasi--norm, which allows us to confirm the validity of a number of previously conjectured conditions for the recovery of low--rank matrices via the popular Schatten $p$--quasi--norm heuristic. We believe that our result will find further applications, especially in the study of low--rank matrix recovery.
1209.0378
Provenance for SPARQL queries
cs.DB
Determining trust of data available in the Semantic Web is fundamental for applications and users, in particular for linked open data obtained from SPARQL endpoints. There exist several proposals in the literature to annotate SPARQL query results with values from abstract models, adapting the seminal works on provenance for annotated relational databases. We provide an approach capable of providing provenance information for a large and significant fragment of SPARQL 1.1, including for the first time the major non-monotonic constructs under multiset semantics. The approach is based on the translation of SPARQL into relational queries over annotated relations with values of the most general m-semiring, and in this way also refuting a claim in the literature that the OPTIONAL construct of SPARQL cannot be captured appropriately with the known abstract models.
1209.0410
Approximate Similarity Search for Online Multimedia Services on Distributed CPU-GPU Platforms
cs.MM cs.DB cs.DC
Similarity search in high-dimentional spaces is a pivotal operation found a variety of database applications. Recently, there has been an increase interest in similarity search for online content-based multimedia services. Those services, however, introduce new challenges with respect to the very large volumes of data that have to be indexed/searched, and the need to minimize response times observed by the end-users. Additionally, those users dynamically interact with the systems creating fluctuating query request rates, requiring the search algorithm to adapt in order to better utilize the underline hardware to reduce response times. In order to address these challenges, we introduce hypercurves, a flexible framework for answering approximate k-nearest neighbor (kNN) queries for very large multimedia databases, aiming at online content-based multimedia services. Hypercurves executes on hybrid CPU--GPU environments, and is able to employ those devices cooperatively to support massive query request rates. In order to keep the response times optimal as the request rates vary, it employs a novel dynamic scheduler to partition the work between CPU and GPU. Hypercurves was throughly evaluated using a large database of multimedia descriptors. Its cooperative CPU--GPU execution achieved performance improvements of up to 30x when compared to the single CPU-core version. The dynamic work partition mechanism reduces the observed query response times in about 50% when compared to the best static CPU--GPU task partition configuration. In addition, Hypercurves achieves superlinear scalability in distributed (multi-node) executions, while keeping a high guarantee of equivalence with its sequential version --- thanks to the proof of probabilistic equivalence, which supported its aggressive parallelization design.
1209.0424
On the changeover timescales of technology transitions and induced efficiency changes: an overarching theory
math.DS cs.SI physics.soc-ph q-fin.GN
This paper presents a general theory that aims at explaining timescales observed empirically in technology transitions and predicting those of future transitions. This framework is used further to derive a theory for exploring the dynamics that underlie the complex phenomenon of irreversible and path dependent price or policy induced efficiency changes. Technology transitions are known to follow patterns well described by logistic functions, which should more rigorously be modelled mathematically using the Lotka-Volterra family of differential equations, originally developed to described the population growth of competing species. The dynamic evolution of technology has also been described theoretically using evolutionary dynamics similar to that observed in nature. The theory presented here joins both approaches and presents a methodology for predicting changeover time constants in order to describe real systems of competing technologies. The problem of price or policy induced efficiency changes becomes naturally explained using this framework. Examples of application are given.
1209.0430
Fixed-rank matrix factorizations and Riemannian low-rank optimization
cs.LG math.OC
Motivated by the problem of learning a linear regression model whose parameter is a large fixed-rank non-symmetric matrix, we consider the optimization of a smooth cost function defined on the set of fixed-rank matrices. We adopt the geometric framework of optimization on Riemannian quotient manifolds. We study the underlying geometries of several well-known fixed-rank matrix factorizations and then exploit the Riemannian quotient geometry of the search space in the design of a class of gradient descent and trust-region algorithms. The proposed algorithms generalize our previous results on fixed-rank symmetric positive semidefinite matrices, apply to a broad range of applications, scale to high-dimensional problems and confer a geometric basis to recent contributions on the learning of fixed-rank non-symmetric matrices. We make connections with existing algorithms in the context of low-rank matrix completion and discuss relative usefulness of the proposed framework. Numerical experiments suggest that the proposed algorithms compete with the state-of-the-art and that manifold optimization offers an effective and versatile framework for the design of machine learning algorithms that learn a fixed-rank matrix.
1209.0444
Affine characterizations of minimum and mode-dependent dwell-times for uncertain linear switched systems
math.OC cs.SY math.CA math.DS
An alternative approach for minimum and mode-dependent dwell-time characterization for switched systems is derived. The proposed technique is related to Lyapunov looped-functionals, a new type of functionals leading to stability conditions affine in the system matrices, unlike standard results for minimum dwell-time. These conditions are expressed as infinite-dimensional LMIs which can be solved using recent polynomial optimization techniques such as sum-of-squares. The specific structure of the conditions is finally utilized in order to derive dwell-time stability results for uncertain switched systems. Several examples illustrate the efficiency of the approach.
1209.0488
Learning Prioritized Control of Motor Primitives
cs.RO
Many tasks in robotics can be decomposed into sub-tasks that are performed simultaneously. In many cases, these sub-tasks cannot all be achieved jointly and a prioritization of such sub-tasks is required to resolve this issue. In this paper, we discuss a novel learning approach that allows to learn a prioritized control law built on a set of sub-tasks represented by motor primitives. The primitives are executed simultaneously but have different priorities. Primitives of higher priority can override the commands of the conflicting lower priority ones. The dominance structure of these primitives has a significant impact on the performance of the prioritized control law. We evaluate the proposed approach with a ball bouncing task on a Barrett WAM.
1209.0491
Coding Opportunity Densification Strategies for Instantly Decodable Network Coding
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we aim to identify the strategies that can maximize and monotonically increase the density of the coding opportunities in instantly decodable network coding (IDNC).Using the well-known graph representation of IDNC, first derive an expression for the exact evolution of the edge set size after the transmission of any arbitrary coded packet. From the derived expressions, we show that sending commonly wanted packets for all the receivers can maximize the number of coding opportunities. Since guaranteeing such property in IDNC is usually impossible, this strategy does not guarantee the achievement of our target. Consequently, we further investigate the problem by deriving the expectation of the edge set size evolution after ignoring the identities of the packets requested by the different receivers and considering only their numbers. We then employ this expected expression to show that serving the maximum number of receivers having the largest numbers of missing packets and erasure probabilities tends to both maximize and monotonically increase the expected density of coding opportunities. Simulation results justify our theoretical findings. Finally, we validate the importance of our work through two case studies showing that our identified strategy outperforms the step-by-step service maximization solution in optimizing both the IDNC completion delay and receiver goodput.
1209.0514
Monotonicity of Fitness Landscapes and Mutation Rate Control
q-bio.PE cs.IT cs.NE math.IT math.OC
A common view in evolutionary biology is that mutation rates are minimised. However, studies in combinatorial optimisation and search have shown a clear advantage of using variable mutation rates as a control parameter to optimise the performance of evolutionary algorithms. Much biological theory in this area is based on Ronald Fisher's work, who used Euclidean geometry to study the relation between mutation size and expected fitness of the offspring in infinite phenotypic spaces. Here we reconsider this theory based on the alternative geometry of discrete and finite spaces of DNA sequences. First, we consider the geometric case of fitness being isomorphic to distance from an optimum, and show how problems of optimal mutation rate control can be solved exactly or approximately depending on additional constraints of the problem. Then we consider the general case of fitness communicating only partial information about the distance. We define weak monotonicity of fitness landscapes and prove that this property holds in all landscapes that are continuous and open at the optimum. This theoretical result motivates our hypothesis that optimal mutation rate functions in such landscapes will increase when fitness decreases in some neighbourhood of an optimum, resembling the control functions derived in the geometric case. We test this hypothesis experimentally by analysing approximately optimal mutation rate control functions in 115 complete landscapes of binding scores between DNA sequences and transcription factors. Our findings support the hypothesis and find that the increase of mutation rate is more rapid in landscapes that are less monotonic (more rugged). We discuss the relevance of these findings to living organisms.
1209.0521
Efficient EM Training of Gaussian Mixtures with Missing Data
cs.LG stat.ML
In data-mining applications, we are frequently faced with a large fraction of missing entries in the data matrix, which is problematic for most discriminant machine learning algorithms. A solution that we explore in this paper is the use of a generative model (a mixture of Gaussians) to compute the conditional expectation of the missing variables given the observed variables. Since training a Gaussian mixture with many different patterns of missing values can be computationally very expensive, we introduce a spanning-tree based algorithm that significantly speeds up training in these conditions. We also observe that good results can be obtained by using the generative model to fill-in the missing values for a separate discriminant learning algorithm.
1209.0532
Controlling the Error Floor in LDPC Decoding
cs.IT math.IT
The error floor of LDPC is revisited as an effect of dynamic message behavior in the so-called absorption sets of the code. It is shown that if the signal growth in the absorption sets is properly balanced by the growth of set-external messages, the error floor can be lowered to essentially arbitrarily low levels. Importance sampling techniques are discussed and used to verify the analysis, as well as to discuss the impact of iterations and message quantization on the code performance in the ultra-low BER (error floor) regime.
1209.0537
One-sided Precoder Designs on Manifolds for Interference Alignment
cs.IT math.IT
Interference alignment (IA) is a technique recently shown to achieve the maximum degrees of freedom (DoF) of $K$-user interference channel. In this paper, we focus on the precoder designs on manifolds for IA. By restricting the optimization only at the transmitters' side, it will alleviate the overhead induced by alternation between the forward and reverse links significantly. Firstly a classical steepest descent (SD) algorithm in multi-dimensional complex space is proposed to achieve feasible IA. Then we reform the optimization problem on Stiefel manifold, and propose a novel SD algorithm based on this manifold with lower dimensions. Moreover, aiming at further reducing the complexity, Grassmann manifold is introduced to derive corresponding algorithm for reaching the perfect IA. Numerical simulations show that the proposed algorithms on manifolds have better convergence performance and higher system capacity than previous methods, also achieve the maximum DoF.
1209.0578
Social Cheesecake: An UX-driven designed interface for managing contacts
cs.HC cs.SI
Social network management interfaces should consider separation of contexts and tie strength. This paper shows the design process upon building the Social Cheesecake, an interface that addresses both issues. Paper and screen prototyping were used in the design process. Paper prototype interactions helped to explore the metaphors in the domain, while screen prototype consolidated the model. The prototype was finally built using HTML5 and Javascript.
1209.0616
Well Placement Optimization under Uncertainty with CMA-ES Using the Neighborhood
cs.CE
In the well placement problem, as well as in other field development optimization problems, geological uncertainty is a key source of risk affecting the viability of field development projects. Well placement problems under geological uncertainty are formulated as optimization problems in which the objective function is evaluated using a reservoir simulator on a number of possible geological realizations. In this paper, we present a new approach to handle geological uncertainty for the well placement problem with a reduced number of reservoir simulations. The proposed approach uses already simulated well configurations in the neighborhood of each well configuration for the objective function evaluation. We use thus only one single reservoir simulation performed on a randomly chosen realization together with the neighborhood to estimate the objective function instead of using multiple simulations on multiple realizations. This approach is combined with the stochastic optimizer CMA-ES. The proposed approach is shown on the benchmark reservoir case PUNQ-S3 to be able to capture the geological uncertainty using a smaller number of reservoir simulations. This approach is compared to the reference approach using all the possible realizations for each well configuration, and shown to be able to reduce significantly the number of reservoir simulations (around 80%).
1209.0622
Sensor Webs for Environmental research
cs.SY cs.NI
The ongoing massive global environmental changes and the past learnings have highlighted the urgency and importance of further detailed understanding of the earth system and implementation of social ecological sustainability measures in a much more effective and transparent manner. This short communication discuss the potential of sensor webs in addressing those research challenges, highlighting it in the context of air pollution issues.
1209.0652
Necessary and sufficient conditions of solution uniqueness in $\ell_1$ minimization
cs.IT math.IT math.NA math.OC
This paper shows that the solutions to various convex $\ell_1$ minimization problems are \emph{unique} if and only if a common set of conditions are satisfied. This result applies broadly to the basis pursuit model, basis pursuit denoising model, Lasso model, as well as other $\ell_1$ models that either minimize $f(Ax-b)$ or impose the constraint $f(Ax-b)\leq\sigma$, where $f$ is a strictly convex function. For these models, this paper proves that, given a solution $x^*$ and defining $I=\supp(x^*)$ and $s=\sign(x^*_I)$, $x^*$ is the unique solution if and only if $A_I$ has full column rank and there exists $y$ such that $A_I^Ty=s$ and $|a_i^Ty|_\infty<1$ for $i\not\in I$. This condition is previously known to be sufficient for the basis pursuit model to have a unique solution supported on $I$. Indeed, it is also necessary, and applies to a variety of other $\ell_1$ models. The paper also discusses ways to recognize unique solutions and verify the uniqueness conditions numerically.
1209.0654
Compressive Optical Deflectometric Tomography: A Constrained Total-Variation Minimization Approach
cs.CV math.OC
Optical Deflectometric Tomography (ODT) provides an accurate characterization of transparent materials whose complex surfaces present a real challenge for manufacture and control. In ODT, the refractive index map (RIM) of a transparent object is reconstructed by measuring light deflection under multiple orientations. We show that this imaging modality can be made "compressive", i.e., a correct RIM reconstruction is achievable with far less observations than required by traditional Filtered Back Projection (FBP) methods. Assuming a cartoon-shape RIM model, this reconstruction is driven by minimizing the map Total-Variation under a fidelity constraint with the available observations. Moreover, two other realistic assumptions are added to improve the stability of our approach: the map positivity and a frontier condition. Numerically, our method relies on an accurate ODT sensing model and on a primal-dual minimization scheme, including easily the sensing operator and the proposed RIM constraints. We conclude this paper by demonstrating the power of our method on synthetic and experimental data under various compressive scenarios. In particular, the compressiveness of the stabilized ODT problem is demonstrated by observing a typical gain of 20 dB compared to FBP at only 5% of 360 incident light angles for moderately noisy sensing.
1209.0676
Channel Assignment in Dense MC-MR Wireless Networks: Scaling Laws and Algorithms
cs.NI cs.IT cs.PF math.IT
We investigate optimal channel assignment algorithms that maximize per node throughput in dense multichannel multi-radio (MC-MR) wireless networks. Specifically, we consider an MC-MR network where all nodes are within the transmission range of each other. This situation is encountered in many real-life settings such as students in a lecture hall, delegates attending a conference, or soldiers in a battlefield. In this scenario, we show that intelligent assignment of the available channels results in a significantly higher per node throughput. We first propose a class of channel assignment algorithms, parameterized by T (the number of transceivers per node), that can achieve $\Theta(1/N^{1/T})$ per node throughput using $\Theta(TN^{1-1/T})$ channels. In view of practical constraints on $T$, we then propose another algorithm that can achieve $\Theta(1/(\log_2 N)^2)$ per node throughput using only two transceivers per node. Finally, we identify a fundamental relationship between the achievable per node throughput, the total number of channels used, and the network size under any strategy. Using analysis and simulations, we show that our algorithms achieve close to optimal performance at different operating points on this curve. Our work has several interesting implications on the optimal network design for dense MC-MR wireless networks.
1209.0715
The Synthesis and Analysis of Stochastic Switching Circuits
cs.IT math.IT
Stochastic switching circuits are relay circuits that consist of stochastic switches called pswitches. The study of stochastic switching circuits has widespread applications in many fields of computer science, neuroscience, and biochemistry. In this paper, we discuss several properties of stochastic switching circuits, including robustness, expressibility, and probability approximation. First, we study the robustness, namely, the effect caused by introducing an error of size \epsilon to each pswitch in a stochastic circuit. We analyze two constructions and prove that simple series-parallel circuits are robust to small error perturbations, while general series-parallel circuits are not. Specifically, the total error introduced by perturbations of size less than \epsilon is bounded by a constant multiple of \epsilon in a simple series-parallel circuit, independent of the size of the circuit. Next, we study the expressibility of stochastic switching circuits: Given an integer q and a pswitch set S=\{\frac{1}{q},\frac{2}{q},...,\frac{q-1}{q}\}, can we synthesize any rational probability with denominator q^n (for arbitrary n) with a simple series-parallel stochastic switching circuit? We generalize previous results and prove that when q is a multiple of 2 or 3, the answer is yes. We also show that when q is a prime number larger than 3, the answer is no. Probability approximation is studied for a general case of an arbitrary pswitch set S=\{s_1,s_2,...,s_{|S|}\}. In this case, we propose an algorithm based on local optimization to approximate any desired probability. The analysis reveals that the approximation error of a switching circuit decreases exponentially with an increasing circuit size.
1209.0724
Synthesis of Stochastic Flow Networks
cs.IT cs.NE math.IT math.PR
A stochastic flow network is a directed graph with incoming edges (inputs) and outgoing edges (outputs), tokens enter through the input edges, travel stochastically in the network, and can exit the network through the output edges. Each node in the network is a splitter, namely, a token can enter a node through an incoming edge and exit on one of the output edges according to a predefined probability distribution. Stochastic flow networks can be easily implemented by DNA-based chemical reactions, with promising applications in molecular computing and stochastic computing. In this paper, we address a fundamental synthesis question: Given a finite set of possible splitters and an arbitrary rational probability distribution, design a stochastic flow network, such that every token that enters the input edge will exit the outputs with the prescribed probability distribution. The problem of probability transformation dates back to von Neumann's 1951 work and was followed, among others, by Knuth and Yao in 1976. Most existing works have been focusing on the "simulation" of target distributions. In this paper, we design optimal-sized stochastic flow networks for "synthesizing" target distributions. It shows that when each splitter has two outgoing edges and is unbiased, an arbitrary rational probability \frac{a}{b} with a\leq b\leq 2^n can be realized by a stochastic flow network of size n that is optimal. Compared to the other stochastic systems, feedback (cycles in networks) strongly improves the expressibility of stochastic flow networks.
1209.0726
A Universal Scheme for Transforming Binary Algorithms to Generate Random Bits from Loaded Dice
cs.IT math.IT math.PR
In this paper, we present a universal scheme for transforming an arbitrary algorithm for biased 2-face coins to generate random bits from the general source of an m-sided die, hence enabling the application of existing algorithms to general sources. In addition, we study approaches of efficiently generating a prescribed number of random bits from an arbitrary biased coin. This contrasts with most existing works, which typically assume that the number of coin tosses is fixed, and they generate a variable number of random bits.
1209.0730
Streaming Algorithms for Optimal Generation of Random Bits
cs.IT cs.DS math.IT math.PR
Generating random bits from a source of biased coins (the biased is unknown) is a classical question that was originally studied by von Neumann. There are a number of known algorithms that have asymptotically optimal information efficiency, namely, the expected number of generated random bits per input bit is asymptotically close to the entropy of the source. However, only the original von Neumann algorithm has a `streaming property' - it operates on a single input bit at a time and it generates random bits when possible, alas, it does not have an optimal information efficiency. The main contribution of this paper is an algorithm that generates random bit streams from biased coins, uses bounded space and runs in expected linear time. As the size of the allotted space increases, the algorithm approaches the information-theoretic upper bound on efficiency. In addition, we discuss how to extend this algorithm to generate random bit streams from m-sided dice or correlated sources such as Markov chains.
1209.0732
Linear Transformations for Randomness Extraction
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT math.PR
Information-efficient approaches for extracting randomness from imperfect sources have been extensively studied, but simpler and faster ones are required in the high-speed applications of random number generation. In this paper, we focus on linear constructions, namely, applying linear transformation for randomness extraction. We show that linear transformations based on sparse random matrices are asymptotically optimal to extract randomness from independent sources and bit-fixing sources, and they are efficient (may not be optimal) to extract randomness from hidden Markov sources. Further study demonstrates the flexibility of such constructions on source models as well as their excellent information-preserving capabilities. Since linear transformations based on sparse random matrices are computationally fast and can be easy to implement using hardware like FPGAs, they are very attractive in the high-speed applications. In addition, we explore explicit constructions of transformation matrices. We show that the generator matrices of primitive BCH codes are good choices, but linear transformations based on such matrices require more computational time due to their high densities.
1209.0734
Efficiently Extracting Randomness from Imperfect Stochastic Processes
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT math.PR
We study the problem of extracting a prescribed number of random bits by reading the smallest possible number of symbols from non-ideal stochastic processes. The related interval algorithm proposed by Han and Hoshi has asymptotically optimal performance; however, it assumes that the distribution of the input stochastic process is known. The motivation for our work is the fact that, in practice, sources of randomness have inherent correlations and are affected by measurement's noise. Namely, it is hard to obtain an accurate estimation of the distribution. This challenge was addressed by the concepts of seeded and seedless extractors that can handle general random sources with unknown distributions. However, known seeded and seedless extractors provide extraction efficiencies that are substantially smaller than Shannon's entropy limit. Our main contribution is the design of extractors that have a variable input-length and a fixed output length, are efficient in the consumption of symbols from the source, are capable of generating random bits from general stochastic processes and approach the information theoretic upper bound on efficiency.
1209.0736
On Set Size Distribution Estimation and the Characterization of Large Networks via Sampling
math.ST cs.IT cs.SI math.IT stat.TH
In this work we study the set size distribution estimation problem, where elements are randomly sampled from a collection of non-overlapping sets and we seek to recover the original set size distribution from the samples. This problem has applications to capacity planning, network theory, among other areas. Examples of real-world applications include characterizing in-degree distributions in large graphs and uncovering TCP/IP flow size distributions on the Internet. We demonstrate that it is hard to estimate the original set size distribution. The recoverability of original set size distributions presents a sharp threshold with respect to the fraction of elements that remain in the sets. If this fraction remains below a threshold, typically half of the elements in power-law and heavier-than-exponential-tailed distributions, then the original set size distribution is unrecoverable. We also discuss practical implications of our findings.
1209.0738
Sparse coding for multitask and transfer learning
cs.LG stat.ML
We investigate the use of sparse coding and dictionary learning in the context of multitask and transfer learning. The central assumption of our learning method is that the tasks parameters are well approximated by sparse linear combinations of the atoms of a dictionary on a high or infinite dimensional space. This assumption, together with the large quantity of available data in the multitask and transfer learning settings, allows a principled choice of the dictionary. We provide bounds on the generalization error of this approach, for both settings. Numerical experiments on one synthetic and two real datasets show the advantage of our method over single task learning, a previous method based on orthogonal and dense representation of the tasks and a related method learning task grouping.
1209.0740
Nonuniform Codes for Correcting Asymmetric Errors in Data Storage
cs.IT math.IT
The construction of asymmetric error correcting codes is a topic that was studied extensively, however, the existing approach for code construction assumes that every codeword should tolerate $t$ asymmetric errors. Our main observation is that in contrast to symmetric errors, asymmetric errors are content dependent. For example, in Z-channels, the all-1 codeword is prone to have more errors than the all-0 codeword. This motivates us to develop nonuniform codes whose codewords can tolerate different numbers of asymmetric errors depending on their Hamming weights. The idea in a nonuniform codes' construction is to augment the redundancy in a content-dependent way and guarantee the worst case reliability while maximizing the code size. In this paper, we first study nonuniform codes for Z-channels, namely, they only suffer one type of errors, say 1 to 0. Specifically, we derive their upper bounds, analyze their asymptotic performances, and introduce two general constructions. Then we extend the concept and results of nonuniform codes to general binary asymmetric channels, where the error probability for each bit from 0 to 1 is smaller than that from 1 to 0.
1209.0741
Optimal Coordinated Beamforming in the Multicell Downlink with Transceiver Impairments
cs.IT math.IT
Physical wireless transceivers suffer from a variety of impairments that distort the transmitted and received signals. Their degrading impact is particularly evident in modern systems with multiuser transmission, high transmit power, and low-cost devices, but their existence is routinely ignored in the optimization literature for multicell transmission. This paper provides a detailed analysis of coordinated beamforming in the multicell downlink. We solve two optimization problems under a transceiver impairment model and derive the structure of the optimal solutions. We show numerically that these solutions greatly reduce the impact of impairments, compared with beamforming developed for ideal transceivers. Although the so-called multiplexing gain is zero under transceiver impairments, we show that the gain of multiplexing can be large at practical SNRs.
1209.0744
Balanced Modulation for Nonvolatile Memories
cs.IT math.IT
This paper presents a practical writing/reading scheme in nonvolatile memories, called balanced modulation, for minimizing the asymmetric component of errors. The main idea is to encode data using a balanced error-correcting code. When reading information from a block, it adjusts the reading threshold such that the resulting word is also balanced or approximately balanced. Balanced modulation has suboptimal performance for any cell-level distribution and it can be easily implemented in the current systems of nonvolatile memories. Furthermore, we studied the construction of balanced error-correcting codes, in particular, balanced LDPC codes. It has very efficient encoding and decoding algorithms, and it is more efficient than prior construction of balanced error-correcting codes.
1209.0748
Force-Directed Graph Drawing Using Social Gravity and Scaling
cs.CG cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Force-directed layout algorithms produce graph drawings by resolving a system of emulated physical forces. We present techniques for using social gravity as an additional force in force-directed layouts, together with a scaling technique, to produce drawings of trees and forests, as well as more complex social networks. Social gravity assigns mass to vertices in proportion to their network centrality, which allows vertices that are more graph-theoretically central to be visualized in physically central locations. Scaling varies the gravitational force throughout the simulation, and reduces crossings relative to unscaled gravity. In addition to providing this algorithmic framework, we apply our algorithms to social networks produced by Mark Lombardi, and we show how social gravity can be incorporated into force-directed Lombardi-style drawings.
1209.0781
World citation and collaboration networks: uncovering the role of geography in science
physics.soc-ph cs.DL cs.SI physics.data-an
Modern information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, have diminished the role of spatial distances and territorial boundaries on the access and transmissibility of information. This has enabled scientists for closer collaboration and internationalization. Nevertheless, geography remains an important factor affecting the dynamics of science. Here we present a systematic analysis of citation and collaboration networks between cities and countries, by assigning papers to the geographic locations of their authors' affiliations. The citation flows as well as the collaboration strengths between cities decrease with the distance between them and follow gravity laws. In addition, the total research impact of a country grows linearly with the amount of national funding for research & development. However, the average impact reveals a peculiar threshold effect: the scientific output of a country may reach an impact larger than the world average only if the country invests more than about 100,000 USD per researcher annually.
1209.0811
Exponential synchronization rate of Kuramoto oscillators in the presence of a pacemaker
cs.SY nlin.AO
The exponential synchronization rate is addressed for Kuramoto oscillators in the presence of a pacemaker. When natural frequencies are identical, we prove that synchronization can be ensured even when the phases are not constrained in an open half-circle, which improves the existing results in the literature. We derive a lower bound on the exponential synchronization rate, which is proven to be an increasing function of pacemaker strength, but may be an increasing or decreasing function of local coupling strength. A similar conclusion is obtained for phase locking when the natural frequencies are non-identical. An approach to trapping phase differences in an arbitrary interval is also given, which ensures synchronization in the sense that synchronization error can be reduced to an arbitrary level.
1209.0814
Increasing sync rate of pulse-coupled oscillators via phase response function design: theory and application to wireless networks
cs.SY nlin.AO
This paper addresses the synchronization rate of weakly connected pulse-coupled oscillators (PCOs). We prove that besides coupling strength, the phase response function is also a determinant of synchronization rate. Inspired by the result, we propose to increase the synchronization rate of PCOs by designing the phase response function. This has important significance in PCO-based clock synchronization of wireless networks. By designing the phase response function, synchronization rate is increased even under a fixed transmission power. Given that energy consumption in synchronization is determined by the product of synchronization time and transformation power, the new strategy reduces energy consumption in clock synchronization. QualNet experiments confirm the theoretical results.
1209.0835
Evolution of Social-Attribute Networks: Measurements, Modeling, and Implications using Google+
cs.SI cs.CY physics.soc-ph
Understanding social network structure and evolution has important implications for many aspects of network and system design including provisioning, bootstrapping trust and reputation systems via social networks, and defenses against Sybil attacks. Several recent results suggest that augmenting the social network structure with user attributes (e.g., location, employer, communities of interest) can provide a more fine-grained understanding of social networks. However, there have been few studies to provide a systematic understanding of these effects at scale. We bridge this gap using a unique dataset collected as the Google+ social network grew over time since its release in late June 2011. We observe novel phenomena with respect to both standard social network metrics and new attribute-related metrics (that we define). We also observe interesting evolutionary patterns as Google+ went from a bootstrap phase to a steady invitation-only stage before a public release. Based on our empirical observations, we develop a new generative model to jointly reproduce the social structure and the node attributes. Using theoretical analysis and empirical evaluations, we show that our model can accurately reproduce the social and attribute structure of real social networks. We also demonstrate that our model provides more accurate predictions for practical application contexts.
1209.0841
Constructing the L2-Graph for Robust Subspace Learning and Subspace Clustering
cs.CV cs.MM
Under the framework of graph-based learning, the key to robust subspace clustering and subspace learning is to obtain a good similarity graph that eliminates the effects of errors and retains only connections between the data points from the same subspace (i.e., intra-subspace data points). Recent works achieve good performance by modeling errors into their objective functions to remove the errors from the inputs. However, these approaches face the limitations that the structure of errors should be known prior and a complex convex problem must be solved. In this paper, we present a novel method to eliminate the effects of the errors from the projection space (representation) rather than from the input space. We first prove that $\ell_1$-, $\ell_2$-, $\ell_{\infty}$-, and nuclear-norm based linear projection spaces share the property of Intra-subspace Projection Dominance (IPD), i.e., the coefficients over intra-subspace data points are larger than those over inter-subspace data points. Based on this property, we introduce a method to construct a sparse similarity graph, called L2-Graph. The subspace clustering and subspace learning algorithms are developed upon L2-Graph. Experiments show that L2-Graph algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art methods for feature extraction, image clustering, and motion segmentation in terms of accuracy, robustness, and time efficiency.
1209.0846
Discovery Signal Design and Its Application to Peer-to-Peer Communications in OFDMA Cellular Networks
cs.IT math.IT
This paper proposes a unique discovery signal as an enabler of peer-to-peer (P2P) communication which overlays a cellular network and shares its resources. Applying P2P communication to cellular network has two key issues: 1. Conventional ad hoc P2P connections may be unstable since stringent resource and interference coordination is usually difficult to achieve for ad hoc P2P communications; 2. The large overhead required by P2P communication may offset its gain. We solve these two issues by using a special discovery signal to aid cellular network-supervised resource sharing and interference management between cellular and P2P connections. The discovery signal, which facilitates efficient neighbor discovery in a cellular system, consists of un-modulated tones transmitted on a sequence of OFDM symbols. This discovery signal not only possesses the properties of high power efficiency, high interference tolerance, and freedom from near-far effects, but also has minimal overhead. A practical discovery-signal-based P2P in an OFDMA cellular system is also proposed. Numerical results are presented which show the potential of improving local service and edge device performance in a cellular network.
1209.0852
Automatic firewall rules generator for anomaly detection systems with Apriori algorithm
cs.AI
Network intrusion detection systems have become a crucial issue for computer systems security infrastructures. Different methods and algorithms are developed and proposed in recent years to improve intrusion detection systems. The most important issue in current systems is that they are poor at detecting novel anomaly attacks. These kinds of attacks refer to any action that significantly deviates from the normal behaviour which is considered intrusion. This paper proposed a model to improve this problem based on data mining techniques. Apriori algorithm is used to predict novel attacks and generate real-time rules for firewall. Apriori algorithm extracts interesting correlation relationships among large set of data items. This paper illustrates how to use Apriori algorithm in intrusion detection systems to cerate a automatic firewall rules generator to detect novel anomaly attack. Apriori is the best-known algorithm to mine association rules. This is an innovative way to find association rules on large scale.
1209.0853
Improving the K-means algorithm using improved downhill simplex search
cs.LG
The k-means algorithm is one of the well-known and most popular clustering algorithms. K-means seeks an optimal partition of the data by minimizing the sum of squared error with an iterative optimization procedure, which belongs to the category of hill climbing algorithms. As we know hill climbing searches are famous for converging to local optimums. Since k-means can converge to a local optimum, different initial points generally lead to different convergence cancroids, which makes it important to start with a reasonable initial partition in order to achieve high quality clustering solutions. However, in theory, there exist no efficient and universal methods for determining such initial partitions. In this paper we tried to find an optimum initial partitioning for k-means algorithm. To achieve this goal we proposed a new improved version of downhill simplex search, and then we used it in order to find an optimal result for clustering approach and then compare this algorithm with Genetic Algorithm base (GA), Genetic K-Means (GKM), Improved Genetic K-Means (IGKM) and k-means algorithms.
1209.0863
Agile Missile Controller Based on Adaptive Nonlinear Backstepping Control
cs.SY
This paper deals with a nonlinear adaptive autopilot design for agile missile systems. In advance of the autopilot design, an investigation of the agile turn maneuver, based on the trajectory optimization, is performed to determine state behaviors during the agile turn phase. This investigation shows that there exist highly nonlinear, rapidly changing dynamics and aerodynamic uncertainties. To handle of these difficulties, we propose a longitudinal autopilot for angle-of-attack tracking based on backstepping control methodology in conjunction with the time-delay adaptation scheme.
1209.0864
Missile Acceleration Controller Design using PI and Time-Delay Adaptive Feedback Linearization Methodology
cs.SY
A straight forward application of feedback linearization to the missile autopilot design for acceleration control may be limited due to the nonminimum characteristics and the model uncertainties. As a remedy, this paper presents a cascade structure of an acceleration controller based on approximate feedback linearization methodology with a time-delay adaptation scheme. The inner loop controller is constructed by applying feedback linearization to the approximate system which is a minimum phase system and provides the desired acceleration signal caused by the angle-of-attack. This controller is augmented by the time-delay adaptive law and the outer loop PI (proportional-integral) controller in order to adaptively compensate for feedback linearization error because of model uncertainty and in order to track the desired acceleration signal. The performance of the proposed method is examined through numerical simulations. Moreover, the proposed controller is tested by using an intercept scenario in 6DOF nonlinear simulations.