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1305.3334
Online Learning in a Contract Selection Problem
cs.LG cs.GT math.OC stat.ML
In an online contract selection problem there is a seller which offers a set of contracts to sequentially arriving buyers whose types are drawn from an unknown distribution. If there exists a profitable contract for the buyer in the offered set, i.e., a contract with payoff higher than the payoff of not accepting any contracts, the buyer chooses the contract that maximizes its payoff. In this paper we consider the online contract selection problem to maximize the sellers profit. Assuming that a structural property called ordered preferences holds for the buyer's payoff function, we propose online learning algorithms that have sub-linear regret with respect to the best set of contracts given the distribution over the buyer's type. This problem has many applications including spectrum contracts, wireless service provider data plans and recommendation systems.
1305.3338
An Efficient Method for Optimizing RFID Reader Deployment and Energy Saving
cs.NI cs.DC cs.SY
The rapid proliferation of Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) systems realizes integration of physical world with the cyber ones. One of the most promising is the Internet of Things (IoT), a vision in which the Internet extends into our daily activities through wireless networks of uniquely identifiable objects. Given that modern RFID systems are being deployed in large-scale for different applications, without optimizing reader's distribution, many of the readers will be redundant, resulting waste of energy. Additionally, eliminating redundant eaders can also decrease probability of reader collisions, as a result, enhancing system performance and efficiency. In this paper, an overlap aware (OA) technique is proposed for eliminating redundant readers. The OA is a distributed approach, which does not need to collect global information for centralizing control, aims to detect maximum amount of redundant readers could be safely removed or turned off with preserving original RFID network coverage. A significant improvement of the OA scheme is that the amount of "write-to-tag" operations could be largely reduced during the redundant reader identification phase. In order to accurately evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it was performed in a variety of scenarios. The experiment results show that the proposed method can provide reliable performance with detecting higher redundancy and has lower algorithm overheads as compared with several well known methods, such as the RRE, LEO, the hybrid algorithm (LEO+RRE) and the DRRE.
1305.3356
Analytical Evaluation of Coverage-Oriented Femtocell Network Deployment
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
This paper proposes a coverage-oriented femtocell network deployment scheme, in which the femtocell base stations (BSs) can decide whether to be active or inactive depending on their distances from the macrocell BSs. Specifically, as the areas close to the macrocell BSs already have satisfactory cellular coverage, the femtocell BSs located inside such areas are kept to be inactive. Thus, all the active femtocells are located in the poor macrocell coverage areas. Based on a stochastic geometric framework, the coverage probability can be analyzed with tractable results. Surprisingly, the results show that the proposed scheme, although with a lower defacto femtocell density, can achieve better coverage performance than that keeping all femtocells in the entire network to be active. The analytical results further identify the achievable optimal performance of the new scheme, which provides mobile operators a guideline for femtocell deployment and operation.
1305.3358
Symmetry in Distributed Storage Systems
cs.IT math.IT
The max-flow outer bound is achievable by regenerating codes for functional repair distributed storage system. However, the capacity of exact repair distributed storage system is an open problem. In this paper, the linear programming bound for exact repair distributed storage systems is formulated. A notion of symmetrical sets for a set of random variables is given and equalities of joint entropies for certain subsets of random variables in a symmetrical set is established. Concatenation coding scheme for exact repair distributed storage systems is proposed and it is shown that concatenation coding scheme is sufficient to achieve any admissible rate for any exact repair distributed storage system. Equalities of certain joint entropies of random variables induced by concatenation scheme is shown. These equalities of joint entropies are new tools to simplify the linear programming bound and to obtain stronger converse results for exact repair distributed storage systems.
1305.3364
Generalized Diversity-Multiplexing Tradeoff of Half-Duplex Relay Networks
cs.IT math.IT
Diversity-multiplexing trade-off has been studied extensively to quantify the benefits of different relaying strategies in terms of error and rate performance. However, even in the case of a single half-duplex relay, which seems fully characterized, implications are not clear. When all channels in the system are assumed to be independent and identically fading, a fixed schedule where the relay listens half of the total duration for communication and transmits the second half combined with quantize-map-and-forward relaying (static QMF) is known to achieve the full-duplex performance [1]. However, when there is no direct link between the source and the destination, a dynamic decode-and-forward (DDF) strategy is needed [2]. It is not clear which one of these two conclusions would carry to a less idealized setup, where the direct link can be neither as strong as the other links nor fully non-existent. In this paper, we provide a generalized diversity-multiplexing trade-off for the half-duplex relay channel which accounts for different channel strengths and recovers the two earlier results as two special cases. We show that these two strategies are sufficient to achieve the diversity-multiplexing trade-off across all channel configurations, by characterizing the best achievable trade-off when channel state information (CSI) is only available at the receivers (CSIR). However, for general relay networks we show that a generalization of these two schemes through a dynamic QMF strategy is needed to achieve optimal performance.
1305.3375
On the Role of Common Codewords in Quadratic Gaussian Multiple Descriptions Coding
cs.IT math.IT
This paper focuses on the problem of $L-$channel quadratic Gaussian multiple description (MD) coding. We recently introduced a new encoding scheme in [1] for general $L-$channel MD problem, based on a technique called `Combinatorial Message Sharing' (CMS), where every subset of the descriptions shares a distinct common message. The new achievable region subsumes the most well known region for the general problem, due to Venkataramani, Kramer and Goyal (VKG) [2]. Moreover, we showed in [3] that the new scheme provides a strict improvement of the achievable region for any source and distortion measures for which some 2-description subset is such that the Zhang and Berger (ZB) scheme achieves points outside the El-Gamal and Cover (EC) region. In this paper, we show a more surprising result: CMS outperforms VKG for a general class of sources and distortion measures, which includes scenarios where for all 2-description subsets, the ZB and EC regions coincide. In particular, we show that CMS strictly extends VKG region, for the $L$-channel quadratic Gaussian MD problem for all $L\geq3$, despite the fact that the EC region is complete for the corresponding 2-descriptions problem. Using the encoding principles derived, we show that the CMS scheme achieves the complete rate-distortion region for several asymmetric cross-sections of the $L-$channel quadratic Gaussian MD problem, which have not been considered earlier.
1305.3384
Transfer Learning for Content-Based Recommender Systems using Tree Matching
cs.LG cs.IR
In this paper we present a new approach to content-based transfer learning for solving the data sparsity problem in cases when the users' preferences in the target domain are either scarce or unavailable, but the necessary information on the preferences exists in another domain. We show that training a system to use such information across domains can produce better performance. Specifically, we represent users' behavior patterns based on topological graph structures. Each behavior pattern represents the behavior of a set of users, when the users' behavior is defined as the items they rated and the items' rating values. In the next step we find a correlation between behavior patterns in the source domain and behavior patterns in the target domain. This mapping is considered a bridge between the two domains. Based on the correlation and content-attributes of the items, we train a machine learning model to predict users' ratings in the target domain. When we compare our approach to the popularity approach and KNN-cross-domain on a real world dataset, the results show that on an average of 83$%$ of the cases our approach outperforms both methods.
1305.3407
Probabilistic Nearest Neighbor Queries on Uncertain Moving Object Trajectories
cs.DB
Nearest neighbor (NN) queries in trajectory databases have received significant attention in the past, due to their application in spatio-temporal data analysis. Recent work has considered the realistic case where the trajectories are uncertain; however, only simple uncertainty models have been proposed, which do not allow for accurate probabilistic search. In this paper, we fill this gap by addressing probabilistic nearest neighbor queries in databases with uncertain trajectories modeled by stochastic processes, specifically the Markov chain model. We study three nearest neighbor query semantics that take as input a query state or trajectory $q$ and a time interval. For some queries, we show that no polynomial time solution can be found. For problems that can be solved in PTIME, we present exact query evaluation algorithms, while for the general case, we propose a sophisticated sampling approach, which uses Bayesian inference to guarantee that sampled trajectories conform to the observation data stored in the database. This sampling approach can be used in Monte-Carlo based approximation solutions. We include an extensive experimental study to support our theoretical results.
1305.3422
Almost Lossless Analog Signal Separation
cs.IT math.IT
We propose an information-theoretic framework for analog signal separation. Specifically, we consider the problem of recovering two analog signals from a noiseless sum of linear measurements of the signals. Our framework is inspired by the groundbreaking work of Wu and Verd\'u (2010) on almost lossless analog compression. The main results of the present paper are a general achievability bound for the compression rate in the analog signal separation problem, an exact expression for the optimal compression rate in the case of signals that have mixed discrete-continuous distributions, and a new technique for showing that the intersection of generic subspaces with subsets of sufficiently small Minkowski dimension is empty. This technique can also be applied to obtain a simplified proof of a key result in Wu and Verd\'u (2010).
1305.3437
Performance of Spatial Modulation using Measured Real-World Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, for the first time real-world channel measurements are used to analyse the performance of spatial modulation (SM), where a full analysis of the average bit error rate performance (ABER) of SM using measured urban correlated and uncorrelated Rayleigh fading channels is provided. The channel measurements are taken from an outdoor urban multiple input multiple output (MIMO) measurement campaign. Moreover, ABER performance results using simulated Rayleigh fading channels are provided and compared with a derived analytical bound for the ABER of SM, and the ABER results for SM using the measured urban channels. The ABER results using the measured urban channels validate the derived analytical bound and the ABER results using the simulated channels. Finally, the ABER of SM is compared with the performance of spatial multiplexing (SMX) using the measured urban channels for small and large scale MIMO. It is shown that SM offers nearly the same or a slightly better performance than SMX for small scale MIMO. However, SM offers large reduction in ABER for large scale MIMO.
1305.3446
Nyquist Filter Design using POCS Methods: Including Constraints in Design
cs.IT cs.NA math.IT
The problem of constrained finite impulse response (FIR) filter design is central to signal processing and arises in a variety of disciplines. This paper surveys the design of such filters using Projection onto convex sets (POCS) and discusses certain commonly encountered time and frequency domain constraints. We study in particular the design of Nyquist filters and propose a simple extension to the work carried out by Haddad, Stark, and Galatsanos in [1]. The flexibility and the ease that this design method provides in terms of accommodating constraints is one of its outstanding features.
1305.3450
Self-healing networks: redundancy and structure
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
We introduce the concept of self-healing in the field of complex networks. Obvious applications range from infrastructural to technological networks. By exploiting the presence of redundant links in recovering the connectivity of the system, we introduce self-healing capabilities through the application of distributed communication protocols granting the "smartness" of the system. We analyze the interplay between redundancies and smart reconfiguration protocols in improving the resilience of networked infrastructures to multiple failures; in particular, we measure the fraction of nodes still served for increasing levels of network damages. We study the effects of different connectivity patterns (planar square-grids, small-world, scale-free networks) on the healing performances. The study of small-world topologies shows us that the introduction of some long-range connections in the planar grids greatly enhances the resilience to multiple failures giving results comparable to the most resilient (but less realistic) scale-free structures.
1305.3456
On differentially dissipative dynamical systems
cs.SY math.DS
Dissipativity is an essential concept of systems theory. The paper provides an extension of dissipativity, named differential dissipativity, by lifting storage functions and supply rates to the tangent bundle. Differential dissipativity is connected to incremental stability in the same way as dissipativity is connected to stability. It leads to a natural formulation of differential passivity when restricting to quadratic supply rates. The paper also shows that the interconnection of differentially passive systems is differentially passive, and provides preliminary examples of differentially passive electrical systems.
1305.3483
Compressive Parameter Estimation for Sparse Translation-Invariant Signals Using Polar Interpolation
cs.IT math.IT
We propose new compressive parameter estimation algorithms that make use of polar interpolation to improve the estimator precision. Our work extends previous approaches involving polar interpolation for compressive parameter estimation in two aspects: (i) we extend the formulation from real non-negative amplitude parameters to arbitrary complex ones, and (ii) we allow for mismatch between the manifold described by the parameters and its polar approximation. To quantify the improvements afforded by the proposed extensions, we evaluate six algorithms for estimation of parameters in sparse translation-invariant signals, exemplified with the time delay estimation problem. The evaluation is based on three performance metrics: estimator precision, sampling rate and computational complexity. We use compressive sensing with all the algorithms to lower the necessary sampling rate and show that it is still possible to attain good estimation precision and keep the computational complexity low. Our numerical experiments show that the proposed algorithms outperform existing approaches that either leverage polynomial interpolation or are based on a conversion to a frequency-estimation problem followed by a super-resolution algorithm. The algorithms studied here provide various tradeoffs between computational complexity, estimation precision, and necessary sampling rate. The work shows that compressive sensing for the class of sparse translation-invariant signals allows for a decrease in sampling rate and that the use of polar interpolation increases the estimation precision.
1305.3486
Noisy Subspace Clustering via Thresholding
cs.IT cs.LG math.IT math.ST stat.ML stat.TH
We consider the problem of clustering noisy high-dimensional data points into a union of low-dimensional subspaces and a set of outliers. The number of subspaces, their dimensions, and their orientations are unknown. A probabilistic performance analysis of the thresholding-based subspace clustering (TSC) algorithm introduced recently in [1] shows that TSC succeeds in the noisy case, even when the subspaces intersect. Our results reveal an explicit tradeoff between the allowed noise level and the affinity of the subspaces. We furthermore find that the simple outlier detection scheme introduced in [1] provably succeeds in the noisy case.
1305.3498
An Improved Sub-Packetization Bound for Minimum Storage Regenerating Codes
cs.IT math.IT
Distributed storage systems employ codes to provide resilience to failure of multiple storage disks. Specifically, an $(n, k)$ MDS code stores $k$ symbols in $n$ disks such that the overall system is tolerant to a failure of up to $n-k$ disks. However, access to at least $k$ disks is still required to repair a single erasure. To reduce repair bandwidth, array codes are used where the stored symbols or packets are vectors of length $\ell$. MDS array codes have the potential to repair a single erasure using a fraction $1/(n-k)$ of data stored in the remaining disks. We introduce new methods of analysis which capitalize on the translation of the storage system problem into a geometric problem on a set of operators and subspaces. In particular, we ask the following question: for a given $(n, k)$, what is the minimum vector-length or sub-packetization factor $\ell$ required to achieve this optimal fraction? For \emph{exact recovery} of systematic disks in an MDS code of low redundancy, i.e. $k/n > 1/2$, the best known explicit codes \cite{WTB12} have a sub-packetization factor $\ell$ which is exponential in $k$. It has been conjectured \cite{TWB12} that for a fixed number of parity nodes, it is in fact necessary for $\ell$ to be exponential in $k$. In this paper, we provide a new log-squared converse bound on $k$ for a given $\ell$, and prove that $k \le 2\log_2\ell\left(\log_{\delta}\ell+1\right)$, for an arbitrary number of parity nodes $r = n-k$, where $\delta = r/(r-1)$.
1305.3532
Temporal networks of face-to-face human interactions
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
The ever increasing adoption of mobile technologies and ubiquitous services allows to sense human behavior at unprecedented levels of details and scale. Wearable sensors are opening up a new window on human mobility and proximity at the finest resolution of face-to-face proximity. As a consequence, empirical data describing social and behavioral networks are acquiring a longitudinal dimension that brings forth new challenges for analysis and modeling. Here we review recent work on the representation and analysis of temporal networks of face-to-face human proximity, based on large-scale datasets collected in the context of the SocioPatterns collaboration. We show that the raw behavioral data can be studied at various levels of coarse-graining, which turn out to be complementary to one another, with each level exposing different features of the underlying system. We briefly review a generative model of temporal contact networks that reproduces some statistical observables. Then, we shift our focus from surface statistical features to dynamical processes on empirical temporal networks. We discuss how simple dynamical processes can be used as probes to expose important features of the interaction patterns, such as burstiness and causal constraints. We show that simulating dynamical processes on empirical temporal networks can unveil differences between datasets that would otherwise look statistically similar. Moreover, we argue that, due to the temporal heterogeneity of human dynamics, in order to investigate the temporal properties of spreading processes it may be necessary to abandon the notion of wall-clock time in favour of an intrinsic notion of time for each individual node, defined in terms of its activity level. We conclude highlighting several open research questions raised by the nature of the data at hand.
1305.3537
Cooperative Relaying in a Poisson Field of Interferers: A Diversity Order Analysis
cs.IT math.IT
This work analyzes the gains of cooperative relaying in interference-limited networks, in which outages can be due to interference and fading. A stochastic model based on point process theory is used to capture the spatial randomness present in contemporary wireless networks. Using a modification of the diversity order metric, the reliability gain of selection decode-and-forward is studied for several cases. The main results are as follows: the achievable \emph{spatial-contention} diversity order (SC-DO) is equal to one irrespective of the type of channel which is due to the ineffectiveness of the relay in the MAC-phase (transmit diversity). In the BC-phase (receive diversity), the SC-DO depends on the amount of fading and spatial interference correlation. In the absence of fading, there is a hard transition between SC-DO of either one or two, depending on the system parameters.
1305.3586
Utility Optimal Scheduling and Admission Control for Adaptive Video Streaming in Small Cell Networks
cs.IT cs.MM cs.NI math.IT
We consider the jointly optimal design of a transmission scheduling and admission control policy for adaptive video streaming over small cell networks. We formulate the problem as a dynamic network utility maximization and observe that it naturally decomposes into two subproblems: admission control and transmission scheduling. The resulting algorithms are simple and suitable for distributed implementation. The admission control decisions involve each user choosing the quality of the video chunk asked for download, based on the network congestion in its neighborhood. This form of admission control is compatible with the current video streaming technology based on the DASH protocol over TCP connections. Through simulations, we evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm under realistic assumptions for a small-cell network.
1305.3595
Binary Energy Harvesting Channel with Finite Energy Storage
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
We consider the capacity of an energy harvesting communication channel with a finite-sized battery. As an abstraction of this problem, we consider a system where energy arrives at the encoder in multiples of a fixed quantity, and the physical layer is modeled accordingly as a finite discrete alphabet channel based on this fixed quantity. Further, for tractability, we consider the case of binary energy arrivals into a unit-capacity battery over a noiseless binary channel. Viewing the available energy as state, this is a state-dependent channel with causal state information available only at the transmitter. Further, the state is correlated over time and the channel inputs modify the future states. We show that this channel is equivalent to an additive geometric-noise timing channel with causal information of the noise available at the transmitter.We provide a single-letter capacity expression involving an auxiliary random variable, and evaluate this expression with certain auxiliary random variable selection, which resembles noise concentration and lattice-type coding in the timing channel. We evaluate the achievable rates by the proposed auxiliary selection and extend our results to noiseless ternary channels.
1305.3596
Robust Streaming Erasure Codes based on Deterministic Channel Approximations
cs.IT math.IT
We study near optimal error correction codes for real-time communication. In our setup the encoder must operate on an incoming source stream in a sequential manner, and the decoder must reconstruct each source packet within a fixed playback deadline of $T$ packets. The underlying channel is a packet erasure channel that can introduce both burst and isolated losses. We first consider a class of channels that in any window of length ${T+1}$ introduce either a single erasure burst of a given maximum length $B,$ or a certain maximum number $N$ of isolated erasures. We demonstrate that for a fixed rate and delay, there exists a tradeoff between the achievable values of $B$ and $N,$ and propose a family of codes that is near optimal with respect to this tradeoff. We also consider another class of channels that introduce both a burst {\em and} an isolated loss in each window of interest and develop the associated streaming codes. All our constructions are based on a layered design and provide significant improvements over baseline codes in simulations over the Gilbert-Elliott channel.
1305.3616
Modeling Information Propagation with Survival Theory
cs.SI cs.DS physics.soc-ph stat.ML
Networks provide a skeleton for the spread of contagions, like, information, ideas, behaviors and diseases. Many times networks over which contagions diffuse are unobserved and need to be inferred. Here we apply survival theory to develop general additive and multiplicative risk models under which the network inference problems can be solved efficiently by exploiting their convexity. Our additive risk model generalizes several existing network inference models. We show all these models are particular cases of our more general model. Our multiplicative model allows for modeling scenarios in which a node can either increase or decrease the risk of activation of another node, in contrast with previous approaches, which consider only positive risk increments. We evaluate the performance of our network inference algorithms on large synthetic and real cascade datasets, and show that our models are able to predict the length and duration of cascades in real data.
1305.3633
Classification for Big Dataset of Bioacoustic Signals Based on Human Scoring System and Artificial Neural Network
cs.CV
In this paper, we propose a method to improve sound classification performance by combining signal features, derived from the time-frequency spectrogram, with human perception. The method presented herein exploits an artificial neural network (ANN) and learns the signal features based on the human perception knowledge. The proposed method is applied to a large acoustic dataset containing 24 months of nearly continuous recordings. The results show a significant improvement in performance of the detection-classification system; yielding as much as 20% improvement in true positive rate for a given false positive rate.
1305.3635
Bioacoustic Signal Classification Based on Continuous Region Processing, Grid Masking and Artificial Neural Network
cs.CV
In this paper, we develop a novel method based on machine-learning and image processing to identify North Atlantic right whale (NARW) up-calls in the presence of high levels of ambient and interfering noise. We apply a continuous region algorithm on the spectrogram to extract the regions of interest, and then use grid masking techniques to generate a small feature set that is then used in an artificial neural network classifier to identify the NARW up-calls. It is shown that the proposed technique is effective in detecting and capturing even very faint up-calls, in the presence of ambient and interfering noises. The method is evaluated on a dataset recorded in Massachusetts Bay, United States. The dataset includes 20000 sound clips for training, and 10000 sound clips for testing. The results show that the proposed technique can achieve an error rate of less than FPR = 4.5% for a 90% true positive rate.
1305.3668
Mining for Geographically Disperse Communities in Social Networks by Leveraging Distance Modularity
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Social networks where the actors occupy geospatial locations are prevalent in military, intelligence, and policing operations such as counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and combating organized crime. These networks are often derived from a variety of intelligence sources. The discovery of communities that are geographically disperse stems from the requirement to identify higher-level organizational structures, such as a logistics group that provides support to various geographically disperse terrorist cells. We apply a variant of Newman-Girvan modularity to this problem known as distance modularity. To address the problem of finding geographically disperse communities, we modify the well-known Louvain algorithm to find partitions of networks that provide near-optimal solutions to this quantity. We apply this algorithm to numerous samples from two real-world social networks and a terrorism network data set whose nodes have associated geospatial locations. Our experiments show this to be an effective approach and highlight various practical considerations when applying the algorithm to distance modularity maximization. Several military, intelligence, and law-enforcement organizations are working with us to further test and field software for this emerging application.
1305.3671
Sparse Adaptive Dirichlet-Multinomial-like Processes
cs.IT math.IT math.ST stat.TH
Online estimation and modelling of i.i.d. data for short sequences over large or complex "alphabets" is a ubiquitous (sub)problem in machine learning, information theory, data compression, statistical language processing, and document analysis. The Dirichlet-Multinomial distribution (also called Polya urn scheme) and extensions thereof are widely applied for online i.i.d. estimation. Good a-priori choices for the parameters in this regime are difficult to obtain though. I derive an optimal adaptive choice for the main parameter via tight, data-dependent redundancy bounds for a related model. The 1-line recommendation is to set the 'total mass' = 'precision' = 'concentration' parameter to m/2ln[(n+1)/m], where n is the (past) sample size and m the number of different symbols observed (so far). The resulting estimator (i) is simple, (ii) online, (iii) fast, (iv) performs well for all m, small, middle and large, (v) is independent of the base alphabet size, (vi) non-occurring symbols induce no redundancy, (vii) the constant sequence has constant redundancy, (viii) symbols that appear only finitely often have bounded/constant contribution to the redundancy, (ix) is competitive with (slow) Bayesian mixing over all sub-alphabets.
1305.3694
Coverage and Throughput Analysis with a Non-Uniform Small Cell Deployment
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
Small cell network (SCN) offers, for the first time, a low-cost and scalable mechanism to meet the forecast data-traffic demand. In this paper, we propose a non-uniform SCN deployment scheme. The small cell base stations (BSs) in this scheme will not be utilized in the region within a prescribed distance away from any macrocell BSs, defined as the inner region. Based upon the analytical framework provided in this work, the downlink coverage and single user throughput are precisely characterized. Provided that the inner region size is appropriately chosen, we find that the proposed non-uniform SCN deployment scheme can maintain the same level of cellular coverage performance even with 50% less small cell BSs used than the uniform SCN deployment, which is commonly considered in the literature. Furthermore, both the coverage and the single user throughput performance will significantly benefit from the proposed scheme, if its average small cell density is kept identical to the uniform SCN deployment. This work demonstrates the benefits obtained from a simple non-uniform SCN deployment, thus highlighting the importance of deploying small cells selectively.
1305.3706
Cut-Set Bounds on Network Information Flow
cs.IT math.IT
Explicit characterization of the capacity region of communication networks is a long standing problem. While it is known that network coding can outperform routing and replication, the set of feasible rates is not known in general. Characterizing the network coding capacity region requires determination of the set of all entropic vectors. Furthermore, computing the explicitly known linear programming bound is infeasible in practice due to an exponential growth in complexity as a function of network size. This paper focuses on the fundamental problems of characterization and computation of outer bounds for networks with correlated sources. Starting from the known local functional dependencies induced by the communications network, we introduce the notion of irreducible sets, which characterize implied functional dependencies. We provide recursions for computation of all maximal irreducible sets. These sets act as information-theoretic bottlenecks, and provide an easily computable outer bound. We extend the notion of irreducible sets (and resulting outer bound) for networks with independent sources. We compare our bounds with existing bounds in the literature. We find that our new bounds are the best among the known graph theoretic bounds for networks with correlated sources and for networks with independent sources.
1305.3733
Coding with Encoding Uncertainty
cs.IT math.IT
We study the channel coding problem when errors and uncertainty occur in the encoding process. For simplicity we assume the channel between the encoder and the decoder is perfect. Focusing on linear block codes, we model the encoding uncertainty as erasures on the edges in the factor graph of the encoder generator matrix. We first take a worst-case approach and find the maximum tolerable number of erasures for perfect error correction. Next, we take a probabilistic approach and derive a sufficient condition on the rate of a set of codes, such that decoding error probability vanishes as blocklength tends to infinity. In both scenarios, due to the inherent asymmetry of the problem, we derive the results from first principles, which indicates that robustness to encoding errors requires new properties of codes different from classical properties.
1305.3758
The Karyotype Ontology: a computational representation for human cytogenetic patterns
cs.CE q-bio.GN
The karyotype ontology describes the human chromosome complement as determined cytogenetically, and is designed as an initial step toward the goal of replacing the current system which is based on semantically meaningful strings. This ontology uses a novel, semi-programmatic methodology based around the tawny library to construct many classes rapidly. Here, we describe our use case, methodology and the event-based approach that we use to represent karyotypes. The ontology is available at http://www.purl.org/ontolink/karyotype/. The clojure code is available at http://code.google.com/p/karyotype-clj/.
1305.3767
On dually flat $(\alpha,\beta)$-metrics
math.DG cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, I will show how to use $\beta$-deformations to deal with dual flatness of $(\alpha,\beta)$-metrics. It is a natural continuation of the research on dually flat Randers metrics(see arxiv:1209.1150). $\beta$-deformations is a new method in Riemann-Finsler geometry, it is introduced by the author(see arxiv:1209.0845).
1305.3778
Empirical Coordination in a Triangular Multiterminal Network
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate the problem of the empirical coordination in a triangular multiterminal network. A triangular multiterminal network consists of three terminals where two terminals observe two external i.i.d correlated sequences. The third terminal wishes to generate a sequence with desired empirical joint distribution. For this problem, we derive inner and outer bounds on the empirical coordination capacity region. It is shown that the capacity region of the degraded source network and the inner and outer bounds on the capacity region of the cascade multiterminal network can be directly obtained from our inner and outer bounds. For a cipher system, we establish key distribution over a network with a reliable terminal, using the results of the empirical coordination. As another example, the problem of rate distortion in the triangular multiterminal network is investigated in which a distributed doubly symmetric binary source is available.
1305.3794
Evolution of Covariance Functions for Gaussian Process Regression using Genetic Programming
cs.NE cs.LG stat.ML
In this contribution we describe an approach to evolve composite covariance functions for Gaussian processes using genetic programming. A critical aspect of Gaussian processes and similar kernel-based models such as SVM is, that the covariance function should be adapted to the modeled data. Frequently, the squared exponential covariance function is used as a default. However, this can lead to a misspecified model, which does not fit the data well. In the proposed approach we use a grammar for the composition of covariance functions and genetic programming to search over the space of sentences that can be derived from the grammar. We tested the proposed approach on synthetic data from two-dimensional test functions, and on the Mauna Loa CO2 time series. The results show, that our approach is feasible, finding covariance functions that perform much better than a default covariance function. For the CO2 data set a composite covariance function is found, that matches the performance of a hand-tuned covariance function.
1305.3797
Formation control with pole placement for multi-agent systems
math.OC cs.MA cs.SY
The problem of distributed controller synthesis for formation control of multi-agent systems is considered. The agents (single integrators) communicate over a communication graph and a decentralized linear feedback structure is assumed. One of the agents is designated as the leader. If the communication graph contains a directed spanning tree with the leader node as the root, then it is possible to place the poles of the ensemble system with purely local feedback controller gains. Given a desired formation, first one of the poles is placed at the origin. Then it is shown that the inter-agent weights can be independently adjusted to assign an eigenvector corresponding to the formation positions, to the zero eigenvalue. Then, only the leader input is enough to bring the agents to the desired formation and keep it there with no further inputs. Moreover, given a formation, the computation of the inter-agent weights that encode the formation information, can be calculated in a decentralized fashion using only local information.
1305.3803
A fast randomized Kaczmarz algorithm for sparse solutions of consistent linear systems
cs.NA cs.IT math.IT math.NA
The Kaczmarz algorithm is a popular solver for overdetermined linear systems due to its simplicity and speed. In this paper, we propose a modification that speeds up the convergence of the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm for systems of linear equations with sparse solutions. The speedup is achieved by projecting every iterate onto a weighted row of the linear system while maintaining the random row selection criteria of Strohmer and Vershynin. The weights are chosen to attenuate the contribution of row elements that lie outside of the estimated support of the sparse solution. While the Kaczmarz algorithm and its variants can only find solutions to overdetermined linear systems, our algorithm surprisingly succeeds in finding sparse solutions to underdetermined linear systems as well. We present empirical studies which demonstrate the acceleration in convergence to the sparse solution using this modified approach in the overdetermined case. We also demonstrate the sparse recovery capabilities of our approach in the underdetermined case and compare the performance with that of $\ell_1$ minimization.
1305.3814
Multi-View Learning for Web Spam Detection
cs.IR cs.LG
Spam pages are designed to maliciously appear among the top search results by excessive usage of popular terms. Therefore, spam pages should be removed using an effective and efficient spam detection system. Previous methods for web spam classification used several features from various information sources (page contents, web graph, access logs, etc.) to detect web spam. In this paper, we follow page-level classification approach to build fast and scalable spam filters. We show that each web page can be classified with satisfiable accuracy using only its own HTML content. In order to design a multi-view classification system, we used state-of-the-art spam classification methods with distinct feature sets (views) as the base classifiers. Then, a fusion model is learned to combine the output of the base classifiers and make final prediction. Results show that multi-view learning significantly improves the classification performance, namely AUC by 22%, while providing linear speedup for parallel execution.
1305.3842
A framework for the calibration of social simulation models
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Simulation with agent-based models is increasingly used in the study of complex socio-technical systems and in social simulation in general. This paradigm offers a number of attractive features, namely the possibility of modeling emergent phenomena within large populations. As a consequence, often the quantity in need of calibration may be a distribution over the population whose relation with the parameters of the model is analytically intractable. Nevertheless, we can simulate. In this paper we present a simulation-based framework for the calibration of agent-based models with distributional output based on indirect inference. We illustrate our method step by step on a model of norm emergence in an online community of peer production, using data from three large Wikipedia communities. Model fit and diagnostics are discussed.
1305.3865
Time allocation in social networks: correlation between social structure and human communication dynamics
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Recent research has shown the deep impact of the dynamics of human interactions (or temporal social networks) on the spreading of information, opinion formation, etc. In general, the bursty nature of human interactions lowers the interaction between people to the extent that both the speed and reach of information diffusion are diminished. Using a large database of 20 million users of mobile phone calls we show evidence this effect is not homogeneous in the social network but in fact, there is a large correlation between this effect and the social topological structure around a given individual. In particular, we show that social relations of hubs in a network are relatively weaker from the dynamical point than those that are poorer connected in the information diffusion process. Our results show the importance of the temporal patterns of communication when analyzing and modeling dynamical process on social networks.
1305.3869
Multicut Lower Bounds via Network Coding
math.CO cs.DM cs.DS cs.IT math.IT
We introduce a new technique to certify lower bounds on the multicut size using network coding. In directed networks the network coding rate is not a lower bound on the multicut, but we identify a class of networks on which the rate is equal to the size of the minimum multicut and show this class is closed under the strong graph product. We then show that the famous construction of Saks et al. that gives a $\Theta(k)$ gap between the multicut and the multicommodity flow rate is contained in this class. This allows us to apply our result to strengthen their multicut lower bound, determine the exact value of the minimum multicut, and give an optimal network coding solution with rate matching the multicut.
1305.3876
Assessing the Potential of Ride-Sharing Using Mobile and Social Data
cs.CY cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Ride-sharing on the daily home-work-home commute can help individuals save on gasoline and other car-related costs, while at the same time it can reduce traffic and pollution. This paper assesses the potential of ride-sharing for reducing traffic in a city, based on mobility data extracted from 3G Call Description Records (CDRs, for the cities of Barcelona and Madrid) and from Online Social Networks (Twitter, collected for the cities of New York and Los Angeles). We first analyze these data sets to understand mobility patterns, home and work locations, and social ties between users. We then develop an efficient algorithm for matching users with similar mobility patterns, considering a range of constraints. The solution provides an upper bound to the potential reduction of cars in a city that can be achieved by ride-sharing. We use our framework to understand the different constraints and city characteristics on this potential benefit. For example, our study shows that traffic in the city of Madrid can be reduced by 59% if users are willing to share a ride with people who live and work within 1 km; if they can only accept a pick-up and drop-off delay up to 10 minutes, this potential benefit drops to 24%; if drivers also pick up passengers along the way, this number increases to 53%. If users are willing to ride only with people they know ("friends" in the CDR and OSN data sets), the potential of ride-sharing becomes negligible; if they are willing to ride with friends of friends, the potential reduction is up to 31%.
1305.3882
Rule-Based Semantic Tagging. An Application Undergoing Dictionary Glosses
cs.CL
The project presented in this article aims to formalize criteria and procedures in order to extract semantic information from parsed dictionary glosses. The actual purpose of the project is the generation of a semantic network (nearly an ontology) issued from a monolingual Italian dictionary, through unsupervised procedures. Since the project involves rule-based Parsing, Semantic Tagging and Word Sense Disambiguation techniques, its outcomes may find an interest also beyond this immediate intent. The cooperation of both syntactic and semantic features in meaning construction are investigated, and procedures which allows a translation of syntactic dependencies in semantic relations are discussed. The procedures that rise from this project can be applied also to other text types than dictionary glosses, as they convert the output of a parsing process into a semantic representation. In addition some mechanism are sketched that may lead to a kind of procedural semantics, through which multiple paraphrases of an given expression can be generated. Which means that these techniques may find an application also in 'query expansion' strategies, interesting Information Retrieval, Search Engines and Question Answering Systems.
1305.3885
Geometric primitive feature extraction - concepts, algorithms, and applications
cs.CV cs.CG
This thesis presents important insights and concepts related to the topic of the extraction of geometric primitives from the edge contours of digital images. Three specific problems related to this topic have been studied, viz., polygonal approximation of digital curves, tangent estimation of digital curves, and ellipse fitting anddetection from digital curves. For the problem of polygonal approximation, two fundamental problems have been addressed. First, the nature of the performance evaluation metrics in relation to the local and global fitting characteristics has been studied. Second, an explicit error bound of the error introduced by digitizing a continuous line segment has been derived and used to propose a generic non-heuristic parameter independent framework which can be used in several dominant point detection methods. For the problem of tangent estimation for digital curves, a simple method of tangent estimation has been proposed. It is shown that the method has a definite upper bound of the error for conic digital curves. It has been shown that the method performs better than almost all (seventy two) existing tangent estimation methods for conic as well as several non-conic digital curves. For the problem of fitting ellipses on digital curves, a geometric distance minimization model has been considered. An unconstrained, linear, non-iterative, and numerically stable ellipse fitting method has been proposed and it has been shown that the proposed method has better selectivity for elliptic digital curves (high true positive and low false positive) as compared to several other ellipse fitting methods. For the problem of detecting ellipses in a set of digital curves, several innovative and fast pre-processing, grouping, and hypotheses evaluation concepts applicable for digital curves have been proposed and combined to form an ellipse detection method.
1305.3887
Joint Model-Order and Step-Size Adaptation using Convex Combinations of Adaptive Reduced-Rank Filters
cs.IT math.IT
In this work we propose schemes for joint model-order and step-size adaptation of reduced-rank adaptive filters. The proposed schemes employ reduced-rank adaptive filters in parallel operating with different orders and step sizes, which are exploited by convex combination strategies. The reduced-rank adaptive filters used in the proposed schemes are based on a joint and iterative decimation and interpolation (JIDF) method recently proposed. The unique feature of the JIDF method is that it can substantially reduce the number of coefficients for adaptation, thereby making feasible the use of multiple reduced-rank filters in parallel. We investigate the performance of the proposed schemes in an interference suppression application for CDMA systems. Simulation results show that the proposed schemes can significantly improve the performance of the existing reduced-rank adaptive filters based on the JIDF method.
1305.3905
Rate-Distortion Theory for Secrecy Systems
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
Secrecy in communication systems is measured herein by the distortion that an adversary incurs. The transmitter and receiver share secret key, which they use to encrypt communication and ensure distortion at an adversary. A model is considered in which an adversary not only intercepts the communication from the transmitter to the receiver, but also potentially has side information. Specifically, the adversary may have causal or noncausal access to a signal that is correlated with the source sequence or the receiver's reconstruction sequence. The main contribution is the characterization of the optimal tradeoff among communication rate, secret key rate, distortion at the adversary, and distortion at the legitimate receiver. It is demonstrated that causal side information at the adversary plays a pivotal role in this tradeoff. It is also shown that measures of secrecy based on normalized equivocation are a special case of the framework.
1305.3931
Gaussian Sensor Networks with Adversarial Nodes
cs.IT cs.SY math.IT math.OC
This paper studies a particular sensor network model which involves one single Gaussian source observed by many sensors, subject to additive independent Gaussian observation noise. Sensors communicate with the receiver over an additive Gaussian multiple access channel. The aim of the receiver is to reconstruct the underlying source with minimum mean squared error. The scenario of interest here is one where some of the sensors act as adversary (jammer): they strive to maximize distortion. We show that the ability of transmitter sensors to secretly agree on a random event, that is "coordination", plays a key role in the analysis. Depending on the coordination capability of sensors and the receiver, we consider two problem settings. The first setting involves transmitters with coordination capabilities in the sense that all transmitters can use identical realization of randomized encoding for each transmission. In this case, the optimal strategy for the adversary sensors also requires coordination, where they all generate the same realization of independent and identically distributed Gaussian noise. In the second setting, the transmitter sensors are restricted to use fixed, deterministic encoders and this setting, which corresponds to a Stackelberg game, does not admit a saddle-point solution. We show that the the optimal strategy for all sensors is uncoded communications where encoding functions of adversaries and transmitters are in opposite directions. For both settings, digital compression and communication is strictly suboptimal.
1305.3932
Inferring the Origin Locations of Tweets with Quantitative Confidence
cs.SI cs.HC cs.LG
Social Internet content plays an increasingly critical role in many domains, including public health, disaster management, and politics. However, its utility is limited by missing geographic information; for example, fewer than 1.6% of Twitter messages (tweets) contain a geotag. We propose a scalable, content-based approach to estimate the location of tweets using a novel yet simple variant of gaussian mixture models. Further, because real-world applications depend on quantified uncertainty for such estimates, we propose novel metrics of accuracy, precision, and calibration, and we evaluate our approach accordingly. Experiments on 13 million global, comprehensively multi-lingual tweets show that our approach yields reliable, well-calibrated results competitive with previous computationally intensive methods. We also show that a relatively small number of training data are required for good estimates (roughly 30,000 tweets) and models are quite time-invariant (effective on tweets many weeks newer than the training set). Finally, we show that toponyms and languages with small geographic footprint provide the most useful location signals.
1305.3934
An Upper Bound on the Capacity of Vector Dirty Paper with Unknown Spin and Stretch
cs.IT math.IT
Dirty paper codes are a powerful tool for combating known interference. However, there is a significant difference between knowing the transmitted interference sequence and knowing the received interference sequence, especially when the channel modifying the interference is uncertain. We present an upper bound on the capacity of a compound vector dirty paper channel where although an additive Gaussian sequence is known to the transmitter, the channel matrix between the interferer and receiver is uncertain but known to lie within a bounded set. Our bound is tighter than previous bounds in the low-SIR regime for the scalar version of the compound dirty paper channel and employs a construction that focuses on the relationship between the dimension of the message-bearing signal and the dimension of the additive state sequence. Additionally, a bound on the high-SNR behavior of the system is established.
1305.3937
On the automorphism groups of some AG-codes based on $C_{a, b}$ curves
cs.IT math.GR math.IT
We study $C_{a, b}$ curves and their applications to coding theory. Recently, Joyner and Ksir have suggested a decoding algorithm based on the automorphisms of the code. We show how $C_{a, b}$ curves can be used to construct MDS codes and focus on some $C_{a, b}$ curves with extra automorphisms, namely $y^3=x^4+1, y^3=x^4-x, y^3-y=x^4$. The automorphism groups of such codes are determined in most characteristics.
1305.3939
Analysis Of Interest Points Of Curvelet Coefficients Contributions Of Microscopic Images And Improvement Of Edges
cs.CV
This paper focuses on improved edge model based on Curvelet coefficients analysis. Curvelet transform is a powerful tool for multiresolution representation of object with anisotropic edge. Curvelet coefficients contributions have been analyzed using Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT), commonly used to study local structure in images. The permutation of Curvelet coefficients from original image and edges image obtained from gradient operator is used to improve original edges. Experimental results show that this method brings out details on edges when the decomposition scale increases.
1305.3941
Quantum codes from superelliptic curves
cs.IT math.AG math.IT
Let $\X$ be an algebraic curve of genus $g \geq 2$ defined over a field $\F_q$ of characteristic $p > 0$. From $\X$, under certain conditions, we can construct an algebraic geometry code $C$. If the code $C$ is self-orthogonal under the symplectic product then we can construct a quantum code $Q$, called a QAG-code. In this paper we study the construction of such codes from curves with automorphisms and the relation between the automorphism group of the curve $\X$ and the codes $C$ and $Q$.
1305.3945
On the Delay-Storage Trade-off in Content Download from Coded Distributed Storage Systems
cs.DC cs.IT cs.PF math.IT
In this paper we study how coding in distributed storage reduces expected download time, in addition to providing reliability against disk failures. The expected download time is reduced because when a content file is encoded to add redundancy and distributed across multiple disks, reading only a subset of the disks is sufficient to reconstruct the content. For the same total storage used, coding exploits the diversity in storage better than simple replication, and hence gives faster download. We use a novel fork-join queuing framework to model multiple users requesting the content simultaneously, and derive bounds on the expected download time. Our system model and results are a novel generalization of the fork-join system that is studied in queueing theory literature. Our results demonstrate the fundamental trade-off between the expected download time and the amount of storage space. This trade-off can be used for design of the amount of redundancy required to meet the delay constraints on content delivery.
1305.3959
Spectral Efficiency and Energy Efficiency of OFDM Systems: Impact of Power Amplifiers and Countermeasures
cs.IT math.IT
In wireless communication systems, the nonlinear effect and inefficiency of power amplifier (PA) have posed practical challenges for system designs to achieve high spectral efficiency (SE) and energy efficiency (EE). In this paper, we analyze the impact of PA on the SE-EE tradeoff of orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) systems. An ideal PA that is always linear and incurs no additional power consumption can be shown to yield a decreasing convex function in the SE-EE tradeoff. In contrast, we show that a practical PA has an SE-EE tradeoff that has a turning point and decreases sharply after its maximum EE point. In other words, the Pareto-optimal tradeoff boundary of the SE-EE curve is very narrow. A wide range of SE-EE tradeoff, however, is desired for future wireless communications that have dynamic demand depending on the traffic loads, channel conditions, and system applications, e.g., high-SE-with-low-EE for rate-limited systems and high-EE-with-low-SE for energy-limited systems. For the SE-EE tradeoff improvement, we propose a PA switching (PAS) technique. In a PAS transmitter, one or more PAs are switched on intermittently to maximize the EE and deliver an overall required SE. As a consequence, a high EE over a wide range SE can be achieved, which is verified by numerical evaluations: with 15% SE reduction for low SE demand, the PAS between a low power PA and a high power PA can improve EE by 323%, while a single high power PA transmitter improves EE by only 68%.
1305.3969
Two-Hop Interference Channels: Impact of Linear Time-Varying Schemes
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the two-hop interference channel (IC) with constant real channel coefficients, which consists of two source-destination pairs, separated by two relays. We analyze the achievable degrees of freedom (DoF) of such network when relays are restricted to perform scalar amplify-forward (AF) operations, with possibly time-varying coefficients. We show that, somewhat surprisingly, by providing the flexibility of choosing time-varying AF coefficients at the relays, it is possible to achieve 4/3 sum-DoF. We also develop a novel outer bound that matches our achievability, hence characterizing the sum-DoF of two-hop interference channels with time-varying AF relaying strategies.
1305.3971
Sparse Norm Filtering
cs.GR cs.CV cs.MM
Optimization-based filtering smoothes an image by minimizing a fidelity function and simultaneously preserves edges by exploiting a sparse norm penalty over gradients. It has obtained promising performance in practical problems, such as detail manipulation, HDR compression and deblurring, and thus has received increasing attentions in fields of graphics, computer vision and image processing. This paper derives a new type of image filter called sparse norm filter (SNF) from optimization-based filtering. SNF has a very simple form, introduces a general class of filtering techniques, and explains several classic filters as special implementations of SNF, e.g. the averaging filter and the median filter. It has advantages of being halo free, easy to implement, and low time and memory costs (comparable to those of the bilateral filter). Thus, it is more generic than a smoothing operator and can better adapt to different tasks. We validate the proposed SNF by a wide variety of applications including edge-preserving smoothing, outlier tolerant filtering, detail manipulation, HDR compression, non-blind deconvolution, image segmentation, and colorization.
1305.3981
Binary Tree based Chinese Word Segmentation
cs.CL
Chinese word segmentation is a fundamental task for Chinese language processing. The granularity mismatch problem is the main cause of the errors. This paper showed that the binary tree representation can store outputs with different granularity. A binary tree based framework is also designed to overcome the granularity mismatch problem. There are two steps in this framework, namely tree building and tree pruning. The tree pruning step is specially designed to focus on the granularity problem. Previous work for Chinese word segmentation such as the sequence tagging can be easily employed in this framework. This framework can also provide quantitative error analysis methods. The experiments showed that after using a more sophisticated tree pruning function for a state-of-the-art conditional random field based baseline, the error reduction can be up to 20%.
1305.4008
Exact Recovery Conditions for Sparse Representations with Partial Support Information
cs.IT math.IT
We address the exact recovery of a k-sparse vector in the noiseless setting when some partial information on the support is available. This partial information takes the form of either a subset of the true support or an approximate subset including wrong atoms as well. We derive a new sufficient and worst-case necessary (in some sense) condition for the success of some procedures based on lp-relaxation, Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) and Orthogonal Least Squares (OLS). Our result is based on the coherence "mu" of the dictionary and relaxes the well-known condition mu<1/(2k-1) ensuring the recovery of any k-sparse vector in the non-informed setup. It reads mu<1/(2k-g+b-1) when the informed support is composed of g good atoms and b wrong atoms. We emphasize that our condition is complementary to some restricted-isometry based conditions by showing that none of them implies the other. Because this mutual coherence condition is common to all procedures, we carry out a finer analysis based on the Null Space Property (NSP) and the Exact Recovery Condition (ERC). Connections are established regarding the characterization of lp-relaxation procedures and OMP in the informed setup. First, we emphasize that the truncated NSP enjoys an ordering property when p is decreased. Second, the partial ERC for OMP (ERC-OMP) implies in turn the truncated NSP for the informed l1 problem, and the truncated NSP for p<1.
1305.4014
Exponential random graph models for networks with community structure
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI
Although the community structure organization is one of the most important characteristics of real-world networks, the traditional network models fail to reproduce the feature. Therefore, the models are useless as benchmark graphs for testing community detection algorithms. They are also inadequate to predict various properties of real networks. With this paper we intend to fill the gap. We develop an exponential random graph approach to networks with community structure. To this end we mainly built upon the idea of blockmodels. We consider both, the classical blockmodel and its degree-corrected counterpart, and study many of their properties analytically. We show that in the degree-corrected blockmodel, node degrees display an interesting scaling property, which is reminiscent of what is observed in real-world fractal networks. The scaling feature comes as a surprise, especially that in this study, contrary to what is suggested in the literature, the scaling property is not attributed to any specific network construction procedure. It is an intrinsic feature of the degree-corrected blockmodel. A short description of Monte Carlo simulations of the models is also given in the hope of being useful to others working in the field.
1305.4018
A Peep on the Interplays between Online Video Websites and Online Social Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Many online video websites provide the shortcut links to facilitate the video sharing to other websites especially to the online social networks (OSNs). Such video sharing behavior greatly changes the interplays between the two types of websites. For example, users in OSNs may watch and re-share videos shared by their friends from online video websites, and this can also boost the popularity of videos in online video websites and attract more people to watch and share them. Characterizing these interplays can provide great insights for understanding the relationships among online video websites, OSNs, ISPs and so on. In this paper we conduct empirical experiments to study the interplays between video sharing websites and OSNs using three totally different data sources: online video websites, OSNs, and campus network traffic. We find that, a) there are many factors that can affect the external sharing probability of videos in online video websites. b) The popularity of a video itself in online video websites can greatly impact on its popularity in OSNs. Videos in Renren, Qzone (the top two most popular Chinese OSNs) usually attract more viewers than in Sina and Tencent Weibo (the top two most popular Chinese microblogs), which indicates the different natures of the two kinds of OSNs. c) The analysis based on real traffic data illustrates that 10\% of video flows are related to OSNs, and they account for 25\% of traffic generated by all videos.
1305.4047
Rank metric and Gabidulin codes in characteristic zero
cs.IT math.IT
We transpose the theory of rank metric and Gabidulin codes to the case of fields of characteristic zero. The Frobenius automorphism is then replaced by any element of the Galois group. We derive some conditions on the automorphism to be able to easily transpose the results obtained by Gabidulin as well and a classical polynomial-time decoding algorithm. We also provide various definitions for the rank-metric.
1305.4048
Molecular modelling and simulation of electrolyte solutions, biomolecules, and wetting of component surfaces
cond-mat.soft cond-mat.mes-hall cs.CE physics.comp-ph
Massively-parallel molecular dynamics simulation is applied to systems containing electrolytes, vapour-liquid interfaces, and biomolecules in contact with water-oil interfaces. Novel molecular models of alkali halide salts are presented and employed for the simulation of electrolytes in aqueous solution. The enzymatically catalysed hydroxylation of oleic acid is investigated by molecular dynamics simulation taking the internal degrees of freedom of the macromolecules into account. Thereby, Ewald summation methods are used to compute the long range electrostatic interactions. In systems with a phase boundary, the dispersive interaction, which is modelled by the Lennard-Jones potential here, has a more significant long range contribution than in homogeneous systems. This effect is accounted for by implementing the Janecek cutoff correction scheme. On this basis, the HPC infrastructure at the Steinbuch Centre for Computing was accessed and efficiently used, yielding new insights on the molecular systems under consideration.
1305.4054
Data Quality Principles in the Semantic Web
cs.DL cs.IR
The increasing size and availability of web data make data quality a core challenge in many applications. Principles of data quality are recognized as essential to ensure that data fit for their intended use in operations, decision-making, and planning. However, with the rise of the Semantic Web, new data quality issues appear and require deeper consideration. In this paper, we propose to extend the data quality principles to the context of Semantic Web. Based on our extensive industrial experience in data integration, we identify five main classes suited for data quality in Semantic Web. For each class, we list the principles that are involved at all stages of the data management process. Following these principles will provide a sound basis for better decision-making within organizations and will maximize long-term data integration and interoperability.
1305.4064
Font Acknowledgment and Character Extraction of Digital and Scanned Images
cs.CV
The font recognition and character extraction is of immense importance as these are many scenarios where data are in such a form, which cannot be processed like in image form or as a hard copy. So the procedure developed in this paper is basically related to identifying the font (Times New Roman, Arial and Comic Sans MS) and afterwards recovering the text using simple correlation based method where the binary templates are correlated to the input image text characters. All of this extraction is done in the presence of a little noise as images may have noisy patterns due to photocopying. The significance of this method exists in extraction of data from various monitoring (Surveillance) camera footages or even more. The method is developed on Matlab\c{opyright} which takes input image and recovers text and font information from it in a text file.
1305.4076
Contractive De-noising Auto-encoder
cs.LG
Auto-encoder is a special kind of neural network based on reconstruction. De-noising auto-encoder (DAE) is an improved auto-encoder which is robust to the input by corrupting the original data first and then reconstructing the original input by minimizing the reconstruction error function. And contractive auto-encoder (CAE) is another kind of improved auto-encoder to learn robust feature by introducing the Frobenius norm of the Jacobean matrix of the learned feature with respect to the original input. In this paper, we combine de-noising auto-encoder and contractive auto- encoder, and propose another improved auto-encoder, contractive de-noising auto- encoder (CDAE), which is robust to both the original input and the learned feature. We stack CDAE to extract more abstract features and apply SVM for classification. The experiment result on benchmark dataset MNIST shows that our proposed CDAE performed better than both DAE and CAE, proving the effective of our method.
1305.4077
Indexing Medical Images based on Collaborative Experts Reports
cs.CV cs.IR
A patient is often willing to quickly get, from his physician, reliable analysis and concise explanation according to provided linked medical images. The fact of making choices individually by the patient's physician may lead to malpractices and consequently generates unforeseeable damages. The Institute of Medicine of the National Sciences Academy(IMNAS) in USA published a study estimating that up to 98,000 hospital deathseach year can be attributed to medical malpractice [1]. Moreover, physician, in charge of medical image analysis, might be unavailable at the right time, which may complicate the patient's state. The goal of this paper is to provide to physicians and patients, a social network that permits to foster cooperation and to overcome the problem of unavailability of doctors on site any time. Therefore, patients can submit their medical images to be diagnosed and commented by several experts instantly. Consequently, the need to process opinions and to extract information automatically from the proposed social network became a necessity due to the huge number of comments expressing specialist's reviews. For this reason, we propose a kind of comments' summary keywords-based method which extracts the major current terms and relevant words existing on physicians' annotations. The extracted keywords will present a new and robust method for image indexation. In fact, significant extracted terms will be used later to index images in order to facilitate their discovery for any appropriate use. To overcome this challenge, we propose our Terminology Extraction of Annotation (TEA) mixed approach which focuses on algorithms mainly based on statistical methods and on external semantic resources.
1305.4081
Conditions for Convergence in Regularized Machine Learning Objectives
cs.LG cs.NA math.OC
Analysis of the convergence rates of modern convex optimization algorithms can be achived through binary means: analysis of emperical convergence, or analysis of theoretical convergence. These two pathways of capturing information diverge in efficacy when moving to the world of distributed computing, due to the introduction of non-intuitive, non-linear slowdowns associated with broadcasting, and in some cases, gathering operations. Despite these nuances in the rates of convergence, we can still show the existence of convergence, and lower bounds for the rates. This paper will serve as a helpful cheat-sheet for machine learning practitioners encountering this problem class in the field.
1305.4094
Evolutionary optimization of an experimental apparatus
quant-ph cond-mat.quant-gas cs.NE
In recent decades, cold atom experiments have become increasingly complex. While computers control most parameters, optimization is mostly done manually. This is a time-consuming task for a high-dimensional parameter space with unknown correlations. Here we automate this process using a genetic algorithm based on Differential Evolution. We demonstrate that this algorithm optimizes 21 correlated parameters and that it is robust against local maxima and experimental noise. The algorithm is flexible and easy to implement. Thus, the presented scheme can be applied to a wide range of experimental optimization tasks.
1305.4095
Wide Band Time-Correlated Model for Wireless Communications under Impulsive Noise within Power Substation
cs.NI cs.SY
The installation of wireless technologies in power substations requires characterizing the impulsive noise produced by the high-voltage equipment. Substation impulsive noise might interfere with classic wireless communications and none of the existing models can reliably represent this noise in wide band. Previous studies have shown that impulsive noise is characterized by series of damped oscillations with the amplitude, the duration and the occurrence times of the impulses that are random. All these characteristics make this noise time-correlated and the partitioned Markov chain remains an efficient model that can ensure the correlation between the samples. In this study, we propose to design a partitioned Markov chain to generate an impulsive noise that is similar to the noise measured in existing substations, in time and frequency domains. We configure our Markov chain to produce the impulses with the damped oscillation effect, then, we determine the probability transition matrix and the distribution of each state of the Markov chain. Finally, we generate noise samples and we study the distribution of the impulsive noise characteristics. Our Markov chain model can replicate the correlation between the measured noise samples; also the distributions of the noise characteristics are similar in the simulations and the measurements.
1305.4096
Modeling and optimizing a distributed power network : A complex system approach of the prosumer management in the smart grid
cs.SY
One of the most important goals of the 21st century is to change radically the way our society produces and distributes energy. This broad objective embodies in the smart grid's futuristic vision of a completely decentralized system powered by renewable plants. Imagine indeed such a real time power network in which everyone could be a consumer or a producer. Based on a coupled information system, each user would be able to buy or sell energy at a time depending price that would allow a homogenization of the consumption, eradicating the well known morning or evening peak. This attractive idea is currently booming in the scientific community as it generates intellectual challenges in various domains. Nevertheless, lots of unanswered questions remain. The first steps are currently accomplished with the appearance of smart meters or the development of more efficient energy storage devices. However, the design of the decentralized information system of the smart grid, which will have to deal with huge amounts of sensor's data in order to control the system within its stability region, seems to be still in search. In the following survey, we concentrate on the telecommunication part of the smart grid system. We begin by identifying different control level in the system, and we focus on high control levels, which are commonly attributed to the information system. We then define a few concepts of the smart grid and present some interesting approaches using models from the complex system theory. In the last part, we review ongoing works aiming at establishing telecommunication requirements for smart grid applications, and underline the necessity of building accountable models for testing these values.
1305.4103
Trading Performance for Stability in Markov Decision Processes
cs.SY
We study the complexity of central controller synthesis problems for finite-state Markov decision processes, where the objective is to optimize both the expected mean-payoff performance of the system and its stability. We argue that the basic theoretical notion of expressing the stability in terms of the variance of the mean-payoff (called global variance in our paper) is not always sufficient, since it ignores possible instabilities on respective runs. For this reason we propose alernative definitions of stability, which we call local and hybrid variance, and which express how rewards on each run deviate from the run's own mean-payoff and from the expected mean-payoff, respectively. We show that a strategy ensuring both the expected mean-payoff and the variance below given bounds requires randomization and memory, under all the above semantics of variance. We then look at the problem of determining whether there is a such a strategy. For the global variance, we show that the problem is in PSPACE, and that the answer can be approximated in pseudo-polynomial time. For the hybrid variance, the analogous decision problem is in NP, and a polynomial-time approximating algorithm also exists. For local variance, we show that the decision problem is in NP. Since the overall performance can be traded for stability (and vice versa), we also present algorithms for approximating the associated Pareto curve in all the three cases. Finally, we study a special case of the decision problems, where we require a given expected mean-payoff together with zero variance. Here we show that the problems can be all solved in polynomial time.
1305.4130
Belief Propagation for Linear Programming
cs.AI cs.DS
Belief Propagation (BP) is a popular, distributed heuristic for performing MAP computations in Graphical Models. BP can be interpreted, from a variational perspective, as minimizing the Bethe Free Energy (BFE). BP can also be used to solve a special class of Linear Programming (LP) problems. For this class of problems, MAP inference can be stated as an integer LP with an LP relaxation that coincides with minimization of the BFE at ``zero temperature". We generalize these prior results and establish a tight characterization of the LP problems that can be formulated as an equivalent LP relaxation of MAP inference. Moreover, we suggest an efficient, iterative annealing BP algorithm for solving this broader class of LP problems. We demonstrate the algorithm's performance on a set of weighted matching problems by using it as a cutting plane method to solve a sequence of LPs tightened by adding ``blossom'' inequalities.
1305.4133
Social Network Generation and Role Determination Based on Smartphone Data
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We deal with the problem of automatically generating social networks by analyzing and assessing smartphone usage and interaction data. We start by assigning weights to the different types of interactions such as messaging, email, phone calls, chat and physical proximity. Next, we propose a ranking algorithm which recognizes the pattern of interaction taking into account the changes in the collected data over time. Both algorithms are based on recent findings from social network research.
1305.4168
Flying Triangulation - towards the 3D movie camera
cs.CV physics.optics
Flying Triangulation sensors enable a free-hand and motion-robust 3D data acquisition of complex shaped objects. The measurement principle is based on a multi-line light-sectioning approach and uses sophisticated algorithms for real-time registration (S. Ettl et al., Appl. Opt. 51 (2012) 281-289). As "single-shot principle", light sectioning enables the option to get surface data from one single camera exposure. But there is a drawback: A pixel-dense measurement is not possible because of fundamental information-theoretical reasons. By "pixel-dense" we understand that each pixel displays individually measured distance information, neither interpolated from its neighbour pixels nor using lateral context information. Hence, for monomodal single-shot principles, the 3D data generated from one 2D raw image display a significantly lower space-bandwidth than the camera permits. This is the price one must pay for motion robustness. Currently, our sensors project about 10 lines (each with 1000 pixels), reaching an considerable lower data efficiency than theoretically possible for a single-shot sensor. Our aim is to push Flying Triangulation to its information-theoretical limits. Therefore, the line density as well as the measurement depth needs to be significantly increased. This causes serious indexing ambiguities. On the road to a single-shot 3D movie camera, we are working on solutions to overcome the problem of false line indexing by utilizing yet unexploited information. We will present several approaches and will discuss profound information-theoretical questions about the information efficiency of 3D sensors.
1305.4195
Search and Result Presentation in Scientific Workflow Repositories
cs.DB
We study the problem of searching a repository of complex hierarchical workflows whose component modules, both composite and atomic, have been annotated with keywords. Since keyword search does not use the graph structure of a workflow, we develop a model of workflows using context-free bag grammars. We then give efficient polynomial-time algorithms that, given a workflow and a keyword query, determine whether some execution of the workflow matches the query. Based on these algorithms we develop a search and ranking solution that efficiently retrieves the top-k grammars from a repository. Finally, we propose a novel result presentation method for grammars matching a keyword query, based on representative parse-trees. The effectiveness of our approach is validated through an extensive experimental evaluation.
1305.4199
Quickest Change Point Detection and Identification Across a Generic Sensor Array
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider the problem of quickest change point detection and identification over a linear array of $N$ sensors, where the change pattern could first reach any of these sensors, and then propagate to the other sensors. Our goal is not only to detect the presence of such a change as quickly as possible, but also to identify which sensor that the change pattern first reaches. We jointly design two decision rules: a stopping rule, which determines when we should stop sampling and claim a change occurred, and a terminal decision rule, which decides which sensor that the change pattern reaches first, with the objective to strike a balance among the detection delay, the false alarm probability, and the false identification probability. We show that this problem can be converted to a Markov optimal stopping time problem, from which some technical tools could be borrowed. Furthermore, to avoid the high implementation complexity issue of the optimal rules, we develop a scheme with a much simpler structure and certain performance guarantee.
1305.4204
Machine learning on images using a string-distance
cs.LG cs.CV
We present a new method for image feature-extraction which is based on representing an image by a finite-dimensional vector of distances that measure how different the image is from a set of image prototypes. We use the recently introduced Universal Image Distance (UID) \cite{RatsabyChesterIEEE2012} to compare the similarity between an image and a prototype image. The advantage in using the UID is the fact that no domain knowledge nor any image analysis need to be done. Each image is represented by a finite dimensional feature vector whose components are the UID values between the image and a finite set of image prototypes from each of the feature categories. The method is automatic since once the user selects the prototype images, the feature vectors are automatically calculated without the need to do any image analysis. The prototype images can be of different size, in particular, different than the image size. Based on a collection of such cases any supervised or unsupervised learning algorithm can be used to train and produce an image classifier or image cluster analysis. In this paper we present the image feature-extraction method and use it on several supervised and unsupervised learning experiments for satellite image data.
1305.4219
Spectrum Sharing for Device-to-Device Communication in Cellular Networks
cs.IT math.IT
This paper addresses two fundamental and interrelated issues in device-to-device (D2D) enhanced cellular networks. The first issue is how D2D users should access spectrum, and we consider two choices: overlay (orthogonal spectrum between D2D and cellular UEs) and underlay (non-orthogonal). The second issue is how D2D users should choose between communicating directly or via the base station, a choice that depends on distance between the potential D2D transmitter and receiver. We propose a tractable hybrid network model where the positions of mobiles are modeled by random spatial Poisson point process, with which we present a general analytical approach that allows a unified performance evaluation for these questions. Then, we derive analytical rate expressions and apply them to optimize the two D2D spectrum sharing scenarios under a weighted proportional fair utility function. We find that as the proportion of potential D2D mobiles increases, the optimal spectrum partition in the overlay is almost invariant (when D2D mode selection threshold is large) while the optimal spectrum access factor in the underlay decreases. Further, from a coverage perspective, we reveal a tradeoff between the spectrum access factor and the D2D mode selection threshold in the underlay: as more D2D links are allowed (due to a more relaxed mode selection threshold), the network should actually make less spectrum available to them to limit their interference.
1305.4228
The state-of-the-art in web-scale semantic information processing for cloud computing
cs.DC cs.AI
Based on integrated infrastructure of resource sharing and computing in distributed environment, cloud computing involves the provision of dynamically scalable and provides virtualized resources as services over the Internet. These applications also bring a large scale heterogeneous and distributed information which pose a great challenge in terms of the semantic ambiguity. It is critical for application services in cloud computing environment to provide users intelligent service and precise information. Semantic information processing can help users deal with semantic ambiguity and information overload efficiently through appropriate semantic models and semantic information processing technology. The semantic information processing have been successfully employed in many fields such as the knowledge representation, natural language understanding, intelligent web search, etc. The purpose of this report is to give an overview of existing technologies for semantic information processing in cloud computing environment, to propose a research direction for addressing distributed semantic reasoning and parallel semantic computing by exploiting semantic information newly available in cloud computing environment.
1305.4240
Relay Selection for Bidirectional AF Relay Network with Outdated CSI
cs.IT math.IT
Most previous researches on bidirectional relay selection (RS) typically assume perfect channel state information (CSI). However, outdated CSI, caused by the the time-variation of channel, cannot be ignored in the practical system, and it will deteriorate the performance. In this paper, the effect of outdated CSI on the performance of bidirectional amplify-and-forward RS is investigated. The optimal single RS scheme in minimizing the symbol error rate (SER) is revised by incorporating the outdated channels. The analytical expressions of end-to-end signal to noise ratio (SNR) and symbol error rate (SER) are derived in a closed-form, along with the asymptotic SER expression in high SNR. All the analytical expressions are verified by the Monte-Carlo simulations. The analytical and the simulation results reveal that once CSI is outdated, the diversity order degrades to one from full diversity. Furthermore, a multiple RS scheme is proposed and verified that this scheme is a feasible solution to compensate the diversity loss caused by outdated CSI.
1305.4274
Conditional Random Fields, Planted Constraint Satisfaction, and Entropy Concentration
math.PR cs.IT math.CO math.IT
This paper studies a class of probabilistic models on graphs, where edge variables depend on incident node variables through a fixed probability kernel. The class includes planted con- straint satisfaction problems (CSPs), as well as more general structures motivated by coding and community clustering problems. It is shown that under mild assumptions on the kernel and for sparse random graphs, the conditional entropy of the node variables given the edge variables concentrates around a deterministic threshold. This implies in particular the concentration of the number of solutions in a broad class of planted CSPs, the existence of a threshold function for the disassortative stochastic block model, and the proof of a conjecture on parity check codes. It also establishes new connections among coding, clustering and satisfiability.
1305.4277
On the maximum rank of Toeplitz block matrices of blocks of a given pattern
math.CO cs.SY
We show that the maximum rank of block lower triangular Toeplitz block matrices equals their term rank if the blocks fulfill a structural condition, i.e., only the locations but not the values of their nonzeros are fixed.
1305.4298
Blockwise SURE Shrinkage for Non-Local Means
cs.CV
In this letter, we investigate the shrinkage problem for the non-local means (NLM) image denoising. In particular, we derive the closed-form of the optimal blockwise shrinkage for NLM that minimizes the Stein's unbiased risk estimator (SURE). We also propose a constant complexity algorithm allowing fast blockwise shrinkage. Simulation results show that the proposed blockwise shrinkage method improves NLM performance in attaining higher peak signal noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index (SSIM), and makes NLM more robust against parameter changes. Similar ideas can be applicable to other patchwise image denoising techniques.
1305.4299
Modeling self-sustained activity cascades in socio-technical networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
The ability to understand and eventually predict the emergence of information and activation cascades in social networks is core to complex socio-technical systems research. However, the complexity of social interactions makes this a challenging enterprise. Previous works on cascade models assume that the emergence of this collective phenomenon is related to the activity observed in the local neighborhood of individuals, but do not consider what determines the willingness to spread information in a time-varying process. Here we present a mechanistic model that accounts for the temporal evolution of the individual state in a simplified setup. We model the activity of the individuals as a complex network of interacting integrate-and-fire oscillators. The model reproduces the statistical characteristics of the cascades in real systems, and provides a framework to study time-evolution of cascades in a state-dependent activity scenario.
1305.4300
Solution of linear equations and inequalities in idempotent vector spaces
math.OC cs.SY
Linear vector equations and inequalities are considered defined in terms of idempotent mathematics. To solve the equations, we apply an approach that is based on the analysis of distances between vectors in idempotent vector spaces. The approach reduces the solution of the equation to that of an optimization problem in the idempotent algebra setting. Based on the approach, existence and uniqueness conditions are established for the solution of equations, and a general solution to both linear equations and inequalities are given. Finally, a problem of simultaneous solution of equations and inequalities is also considered.
1305.4314
Secure Cascade Channel Synthesis
cs.IT math.IT
We investigate channel synthesis in a cascade setting where nature provides an iid sequence $X^n$ at node 1. Node 1 can send a message at rate $R_1$ to node 2 and node 2 can send a message at rate $R_2$ to node 3. Additionally, all 3 nodes share bits of common randomness at rate $R_0$. We want to generate sequences $Y^n$ and $Z^n$ along nodes in the cascade such that $(X^n,Y^n,Z^n)$ appears to be appropriately correlated and iid even to an eavesdropper who is cognizant of the messages being sent. We characterize the optimal tradeoff between the amount of common randomness used and the required rates of communication. We also solve the problem for arbitrarily long cascades and provide an inner bound for cascade channel synthesis without an eavesdropper.
1305.4324
Horizon-Independent Optimal Prediction with Log-Loss in Exponential Families
cs.LG stat.ML
We study online learning under logarithmic loss with regular parametric models. Hedayati and Bartlett (2012b) showed that a Bayesian prediction strategy with Jeffreys prior and sequential normalized maximum likelihood (SNML) coincide and are optimal if and only if the latter is exchangeable, and if and only if the optimal strategy can be calculated without knowing the time horizon in advance. They put forward the question what families have exchangeable SNML strategies. This paper fully answers this open problem for one-dimensional exponential families. The exchangeability can happen only for three classes of natural exponential family distributions, namely the Gaussian, Gamma, and the Tweedie exponential family of order 3/2. Keywords: SNML Exchangeability, Exponential Family, Online Learning, Logarithmic Loss, Bayesian Strategy, Jeffreys Prior, Fisher Information1
1305.4328
Competition-induced criticality in a model of meme popularity
physics.soc-ph cs.SI nlin.AO
Heavy-tailed distributions of meme popularity occur naturally in a model of meme diffusion on social networks. Competition between multiple memes for the limited resource of user attention is identified as the mechanism that poises the system at criticality. The popularity growth of each meme is described by a critical branching process, and asymptotic analysis predicts power-law distributions of popularity with very heavy tails (exponent $\alpha<2$, unlike preferential-attachment models), similar to those seen in empirical data.
1305.4339
Generalized Centroid Estimators in Bioinformatics
q-bio.QM cs.LG
In a number of estimation problems in bioinformatics, accuracy measures of the target problem are usually given, and it is important to design estimators that are suitable to those accuracy measures. However, there is often a discrepancy between an employed estimator and a given accuracy measure of the problem. In this study, we introduce a general class of efficient estimators for estimation problems on high-dimensional binary spaces, which representmany fundamental problems in bioinformatics. Theoretical analysis reveals that the proposed estimators generally fit with commonly-used accuracy measures (e.g. sensitivity, PPV, MCC and F-score) as well as it can be computed efficiently in many cases, and cover a wide range of problems in bioinformatics from the viewpoint of the principle of maximum expected accuracy (MEA). It is also shown that some important algorithms in bioinformatics can be interpreted in a unified manner. Not only the concept presented in this paper gives a useful framework to design MEA-based estimators but also it is highly extendable and sheds new light on many problems in bioinformatics.
1305.4345
Ensembles of Classifiers based on Dimensionality Reduction
cs.LG
We present a novel approach for the construction of ensemble classifiers based on dimensionality reduction. Dimensionality reduction methods represent datasets using a small number of attributes while preserving the information conveyed by the original dataset. The ensemble members are trained based on dimension-reduced versions of the training set. These versions are obtained by applying dimensionality reduction to the original training set using different values of the input parameters. This construction meets both the diversity and accuracy criteria which are required to construct an ensemble classifier where the former criterion is obtained by the various input parameter values and the latter is achieved due to the decorrelation and noise reduction properties of dimensionality reduction. In order to classify a test sample, it is first embedded into the dimension reduced space of each individual classifier by using an out-of-sample extension algorithm. Each classifier is then applied to the embedded sample and the classification is obtained via a voting scheme. We present three variations of the proposed approach based on the Random Projections, the Diffusion Maps and the Random Subspaces dimensionality reduction algorithms. We also present a multi-strategy ensemble which combines AdaBoost and Diffusion Maps. A comparison is made with the Bagging, AdaBoost, Rotation Forest ensemble classifiers and also with the base classifier which does not incorporate dimensionality reduction. Our experiments used seventeen benchmark datasets from the UCI repository. The results obtained by the proposed algorithms were superior in many cases to other algorithms.
1305.4372
Risk Limiting Dispatch with Ramping Constraints
math.OC cs.SY
Reliable operation in power systems is becoming more difficult as the penetration of random renewable resources increases. In particular, operators face the risk of not scheduling enough traditional generators in the times when renewable energies becomes lower than expected. In this paper we study the optimal trade-off between system and risk, and the cost of scheduling reserve generators. We explicitly model the ramping constraints on the generators. We model the problem as a multi-period stochastic control problem, and we show the structure of the optimal dispatch. We then show how to efficiently compute the dispatch using two methods: i) solving a surrogate chance constrained program, ii) a MPC-type look ahead controller. Using real world data, we show the chance constrained dispatch outperforms the MPC controller and is also robust to changes in the probability distribution of the renewables.
1305.4403
Communicating over Filter-and-Forward Relay Networks with Channel Output Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
Relay networks aid in increasing the rate of communication from source to destination. However, the capacity of even a three-terminal relay channel is an open problem. In this work, we propose a new lower bound for the capacity of the three-terminal relay channel with destination-to-source feedback in the presence of correlated noise. Our lower bound improves on the existing bounds in the literature. We then extend our lower bound to general relay network configurations using an arbitrary number of filter-and-forward relay nodes. Such network configurations are common in many multi-hop communication systems where the intermediate nodes can only perform minimal processing due to limited computational power. Simulation results show that significant improvements in the achievable rate can be obtained through our approach. We next derive a coding strategy (optimized using post processed signal-to-noise ratio as a criterion) for the three-terminal relay channel with noisy channel output feedback for two transmissions. This coding scheme can be used in conjunction with open-loop codes for applications like automatic repeat request (ARQ) or hybrid-ARQ.
1305.4419
Imbalanced Beamforming by a Multi-antenna Source for Secure Utilization of an Untrusted Relay
cs.IT math.IT
We investigate a relay network where a multiantenna source can potentially utilize an unauthenticated (untrusted) relay to augment its direct transmission of a confidential message to the destination. Since the relay is untrusted, it is desirable to protect the confidential data from it while simultaneously making use of it to increase the reliability of the transmission. We present a low-complexity scheme denoted as imbalanced beamforming based on linear beamforming and constellation mapping that ensures perfect physical-layer security even while utilizing the untrusted relay. Furthermore, the security of the scheme holds even if the relay adopts the conventional decodeand- forward protocol, unlike prior work. Simulation results show that the proposed imbalanced signaling maintains a constant BER of 0.5 at the eavesdropper at any SNR and number of source antennas, while maintaining or improving the detection performance of the destination compared to not utilizing the relay or existing security methods.
1305.4429
Inferring High Quality Co-Travel Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Social networks provide a new perspective for enterprises to better understand their customers and have attracted substantial attention in industry. However, inferring high quality customer social networks is a great challenge while there are no explicit customer relations in many traditional OLTP environments. In this paper, we study this issue in the field of passenger transport and introduce a new member to the family of social networks, which is named Co-Travel Networks, consisting of passengers connected by their co-travel behaviors. We propose a novel method to infer high quality co-travel networks of civil aviation passengers from their co-booking behaviors derived from the PNRs (Passenger Naming Records). In our method, to accurately evaluate the strength of ties, we present a measure of Co-Journey Times to count the co-travel times of complete journeys between passengers. We infer a high quality co-travel network based on a large encrypted PNR dataset and conduct a series of network analyses on it. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our inferring method, as well as some special characteristics of co-travel networks, such as the sparsity and high aggregation, compared with other kinds of social networks. It can be expected that such co-travel networks will greatly help the industry to better understand their passengers so as to improve their services. More importantly, we contribute a special kind of social networks with high strength of ties generated from very close and high cost travel behaviors, for further scientific researches on human travel behaviors, group travel patterns, high-end travel market evolution, etc., from the perspective of social networks.
1305.4433
Meta Path-Based Collective Classification in Heterogeneous Information Networks
cs.LG stat.ML
Collective classification has been intensively studied due to its impact in many important applications, such as web mining, bioinformatics and citation analysis. Collective classification approaches exploit the dependencies of a group of linked objects whose class labels are correlated and need to be predicted simultaneously. In this paper, we focus on studying the collective classification problem in heterogeneous networks, which involves multiple types of data objects interconnected by multiple types of links. Intuitively, two objects are correlated if they are linked by many paths in the network. However, most existing approaches measure the dependencies among objects through directly links or indirect links without considering the different semantic meanings behind different paths. In this paper, we study the collective classification problem taht is defined among the same type of objects in heterogenous networks. Moreover, by considering different linkage paths in the network, one can capture the subtlety of different types of dependencies among objects. We introduce the concept of meta-path based dependencies among objects, where a meta path is a path consisting a certain sequence of linke types. We show that the quality of collective classification results strongly depends upon the meta paths used. To accommodate the large network size, a novel solution, called HCC (meta-path based Heterogenous Collective Classification), is developed to effectively assign labels to a group of instances that are interconnected through different meta-paths. The proposed HCC model can capture different types of dependencies among objects with respect to different meta paths. Empirical studies on real-world networks demonstrate that effectiveness of the proposed meta path-based collective classification approach.
1305.4444
Multi-receiver Authentication Scheme for Multiple Messages Based on Linear Codes
cs.CR cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we construct an authentication scheme for multi-receivers and multiple messages based on a linear code $C$. This construction can be regarded as a generalization of the authentication scheme given by Safavi-Naini and Wang. Actually, we notice that the scheme of Safavi-Naini and Wang is constructed with Reed-Solomon codes. The generalization to linear codes has the similar advantages as generalizing Shamir's secret sharing scheme to linear secret sharing sceme based on linear codes. For a fixed message base field $\f$, our scheme allows arbitrarily many receivers to check the integrity of their own messages, while the scheme of Safavi-Naini and Wang has a constraint on the number of verifying receivers $V\leqslant q$. And we introduce access structure in our scheme. Massey characterized the access structure of linear secret sharing scheme by minimal codewords in the dual code whose first component is 1. We slightly modify the definition of minimal codewords in \cite{Massey93}. Let $C$ be a $[V,k]$ linear code. For any coordinate $i\in \{1,2,\cdots,V\}$, a codeword $\vec{c}$ in $C$ is called minimal respect to $i$ if the codeword $\vec{c}$ has component 1 at the $i$-th coordinate and there is no other codeword whose $i$-th component is 1 with support strictly contained in that of $\vec{c}$. Then the security of receiver $R_i$ in our authentication scheme is characterized by the minimal codewords respect to $i$ in the dual code $C^\bot$.
1305.4446
An analysis of block sampling strategies in compressed sensing
cs.IT math.IT math.ST stat.TH
Compressed sensing is a theory which guarantees the exact recovery of sparse signals from a small number of linear projections. The sampling schemes suggested by current compressed sensing theories are often of little practical relevance since they cannot be implemented on real acquisition systems. In this paper, we study a new random sampling approach that consists in projecting the signal over blocks of sensing vectors. A typical example is the case of blocks made of horizontal lines in the 2D Fourier plane. We provide theoretical results on the number of blocks that are required for exact sparse signal reconstruction. This number depends on two properties named intra and inter-support block coherence. We then show through a series of examples including Gaussian measurements, isolated measurements or blocks in time-frequency bases, that the main result is sharp in the sense that the minimum amount of blocks necessary to reconstruct sparse signals cannot be improved up to a multiplicative logarithmic factor. The proposed results provide a good insight on the possibilities and limits of block compressed sensing in imaging devices such as magnetic resonance imaging, radio-interferometry or ultra-sound imaging.
1305.4455
SHARE: A Web Service Based Framework for Distributed Querying and Reasoning on the Semantic Web
cs.DL cs.AI cs.SE
Here we describe the SHARE system, a web service based framework for distributed querying and reasoning on the semantic web. The main innovations of SHARE are: (1) the extension of a SPARQL query engine to perform on-demand data retrieval from web services, and (2) the extension of an OWL reasoner to test property restrictions by means of web service invocations. In addition to enabling queries across distributed datasets, the system allows for a target dataset that is significantly larger than is possible under current, centralized approaches. Although the architecture is equally applicable to all types of data, the SHARE system targets bioinformatics, due to the large number of interoperable web services that are already available in this area. SHARE is built entirely on semantic web standards, and is the successor of the BioMOBY project.
1305.4508
Quadratic Residue Codes over F_p+vF_p and their Gray Images
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper quadratic residue codes over the ring Fp + vFp are introduced in terms of their idempotent generators. The structure of these codes is studied and it is observed that these codes share similar properties with quadratic residue codes over finite fields. For the case p = 2, Euclidean and Hermitian self-dual families of codes as extended quadratic residue codes are considered and two optimal Hermitian self-dual codes are obtained as examples. Moreover, a substantial number of good p-ary codes are obtained as images of quadratic residue codes over Fp +vFp in the cases where p is an odd prime. These results are presented in tables.
1305.4525
Robustness of Random Forest-based gene selection methods
cs.LG q-bio.QM
Gene selection is an important part of microarray data analysis because it provides information that can lead to a better mechanistic understanding of an investigated phenomenon. At the same time, gene selection is very difficult because of the noisy nature of microarray data. As a consequence, gene selection is often performed with machine learning methods. The Random Forest method is particularly well suited for this purpose. In this work, four state-of-the-art Random Forest-based feature selection methods were compared in a gene selection context. The analysis focused on the stability of selection because, although it is necessary for determining the significance of results, it is often ignored in similar studies. The comparison of post-selection accuracy in the validation of Random Forest classifiers revealed that all investigated methods were equivalent in this context. However, the methods substantially differed with respect to the number of selected genes and the stability of selection. Of the analysed methods, the Boruta algorithm predicted the most genes as potentially important. The post-selection classifier error rate, which is a frequently used measure, was found to be a potentially deceptive measure of gene selection quality. When the number of consistently selected genes was considered, the Boruta algorithm was clearly the best. Although it was also the most computationally intensive method, the Boruta algorithm's computational demands could be reduced to levels comparable to those of other algorithms by replacing the Random Forest importance with a comparable measure from Random Ferns (a similar but simplified classifier). Despite their design assumptions, the minimal optimal selection methods, were found to select a high fraction of false positives.
1305.4537
Object Detection with Pixel Intensity Comparisons Organized in Decision Trees
cs.CV
We describe a method for visual object detection based on an ensemble of optimized decision trees organized in a cascade of rejectors. The trees use pixel intensity comparisons in their internal nodes and this makes them able to process image regions very fast. Experimental analysis is provided through a face detection problem. The obtained results are encouraging and demonstrate that the method has practical value. Additionally, we analyse its sensitivity to noise and show how to perform fast rotation invariant object detection. Complete source code is provided at https://github.com/nenadmarkus/pico.
1305.4544
Efficient Image Retargeting for High Dynamic Range Scenes
cs.CV
Most of the real world scenes have a very high dynamic range (HDR). The mobile phone cameras and the digital cameras available in markets are limited in their capability in both the range and spatial resolution. Same argument can be posed about the limited dynamic range display devices which also differ in the spatial resolution and aspect ratios. In this paper, we address the problem of displaying the high contrast low dynamic range (LDR) image of a HDR scene in a display device which has different spatial resolution compared to that of the capturing digital camera. The optimal solution proposed in this work can be employed with any camera which has the ability to shoot multiple differently exposed images of a scene. Further, the proposed solutions provide the flexibility in the depiction of entire contrast of the HDR scene as a LDR image with an user specified spatial resolution. This task is achieved through an optimized content aware retargeting framework which preserves salient features along with the algorithm to combine multi-exposure images. We show the proposed approach performs exceedingly well in the generation of high contrast LDR image of varying spatial resolution compared to an alternate approach.