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1309.5836
Exact Joint Distribution Analysis of Zero-Forcing V-BLAST Gains with Greedy Ordering
cs.IT math.IT
We derive the joint probability distribution of zero-forcing (ZF) V-BLAST gains under a greedy selection of decoding order and no error propagation. Unlike the previous approximated analyses, a mathematical framework is built by applying order statistics rules and an exact closed-form joint probability density function expression for squared layer gains is obtained. Our analysis relies on the fact that all orderings are equiprobable under independent and identical Rayleigh fading. Based on this idea, we determine the joint distribution of the ordered gains from the joint distribution of the unordered gains. Our results are applicable for any number of transmit and receive antennas. Although we present our analysis in a ZF V-BLAST setting, our analytical results can be directly applied for the dual cases of ZF V-BLAST. Under the assumption of a low rate feedback of decoding order to the transmitter, a benefit of having exact expressions is illustrated by the calculation of the cutoff value under optimal power allocation that maximizes the sum of the substream outage capacities under a given sum power constraint. We provide numerical results and verify our analysis by means of simulations.
1309.5843
Sentiment Analysis: How to Derive Prior Polarities from SentiWordNet
cs.CL
Assigning a positive or negative score to a word out of context (i.e. a word's prior polarity) is a challenging task for sentiment analysis. In the literature, various approaches based on SentiWordNet have been proposed. In this paper, we compare the most often used techniques together with newly proposed ones and incorporate all of them in a learning framework to see whether blending them can further improve the estimation of prior polarity scores. Using two different versions of SentiWordNet and testing regression and classification models across tasks and datasets, our learning approach consistently outperforms the single metrics, providing a new state-of-the-art approach in computing words' prior polarity for sentiment analysis. We conclude our investigation showing interesting biases in calculated prior polarity scores when word Part of Speech and annotator gender are considered.
1309.5854
Demodulation of Sparse PPM Signals with Low Samples Using Trained RIP Matrix
cs.OH cs.IT cs.LG math.IT
Compressed sensing (CS) theory considers the restricted isometry property (RIP) as a sufficient condition for measurement matrix which guarantees the recovery of any sparse signal from its compressed measurements. The RIP condition also preserves enough information for classification of sparse symbols, even with fewer measurements. In this work, we utilize RIP bound as the cost function for training a simple neural network in order to exploit the near optimal measurements or equivalently near optimal features for classification of a known set of sparse symbols. As an example, we consider demodulation of pulse position modulation (PPM) signals. The results indicate that the proposed method has much better performance than the random measurements and requires less samples than the optimum matched filter demodulator, at the expense of some performance loss. Further, the proposed approach does not need equalizer for multipath channels in contrast to the conventional receiver.
1309.5868
A Framework for Structural Input/Output and Control Configuration Selection in Large-Scale Systems
math.OC cs.SY
This paper addresses problems on the structural design of control systems taking explicitly into consideration the possible application to large-scale systems. We provide an efficient and unified framework to solve the following major minimization problems: (i) selection of the minimum number of manipulated/measured variables to achieve structural controllability/observability of the system, and (ii) selection of the minimum number of feedback interconnections between measured and manipulated variables such that the closed-loop system has no structurally fixed modes. Contrary to what would be expected, we show that it is possible to obtain a global solution for each of the aforementioned minimization problems using polynomial complexity algorithms in the number of the state variables of the system. In addition, we provide several new graph-theoretic characterizations of structural systems concepts, which, in turn, enable us to characterize all possible solutions to the above problems.
1309.5896
On the Success Rate of Crossover Operators for Genetic Programming with Offspring Selection
cs.NE
Genetic programming is a powerful heuristic search technique that is used for a number of real world applications to solve among others regression, classification, and time-series forecasting problems. A lot of progress towards a theoretic description of genetic programming in form of schema theorems has been made, but the internal dynamics and success factors of genetic programming are still not fully understood. In particular, the effects of different crossover operators in combination with offspring selection are largely unknown. This contribution sheds light on the ability of well-known GP crossover operators to create better offspring when applied to benchmark problems. We conclude that standard (sub-tree swapping) crossover is a good default choice in combination with offspring selection, and that GP with offspring selection and random selection of crossover operators can improve the performance of the algorithm in terms of best solution quality when no solution size constraints are applied.
1309.5904
Fenchel Duals for Drifting Adversaries
cs.LG
We describe a primal-dual framework for the design and analysis of online convex optimization algorithms for {\em drifting regret}. Existing literature shows (nearly) optimal drifting regret bounds only for the $\ell_2$ and the $\ell_1$-norms. Our work provides a connection between these algorithms and the Online Mirror Descent ($\omd$) updates; one key insight that results from our work is that in order for these algorithms to succeed, it suffices to have the gradient of the regularizer to be bounded (in an appropriate norm). For situations (like for the $\ell_1$ norm) where the vanilla regularizer does not have this property, we have to {\em shift} the regularizer to ensure this. Thus, this helps explain the various updates presented in \cite{bansal10, buchbinder12}. We also consider the online variant of the problem with 1-lookahead, and with movement costs in the $\ell_2$-norm. Our primal dual approach yields nearly optimal competitive ratios for this problem.
1309.5909
From Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After: Tracking Emotions in Novels and Fairy Tales
cs.CL
Today we have access to unprecedented amounts of literary texts. However, search still relies heavily on key words. In this paper, we show how sentiment analysis can be used in tandem with effective visualizations to quantify and track emotions in both individual books and across very large collections. We introduce the concept of emotion word density, and using the Brothers Grimm fairy tales as example, we show how collections of text can be organized for better search. Using the Google Books Corpus we show how to determine an entity's emotion associations from co-occurring words. Finally, we compare emotion words in fairy tales and novels, to show that fairy tales have a much wider range of emotion word densities than novels.
1309.5914
Computational barriers in minimax submatrix detection
math.ST cs.IT math.IT stat.TH
This paper studies the minimax detection of a small submatrix of elevated mean in a large matrix contaminated by additive Gaussian noise. To investigate the tradeoff between statistical performance and computational cost from a complexity-theoretic perspective, we consider a sequence of discretized models which are asymptotically equivalent to the Gaussian model. Under the hypothesis that the planted clique detection problem cannot be solved in randomized polynomial time when the clique size is of smaller order than the square root of the graph size, the following phase transition phenomenon is established: when the size of the large matrix $p\to\infty$, if the submatrix size $k=\Theta(p^{\alpha})$ for any $\alpha\in(0,{2}/{3})$, computational complexity constraints can incur a severe penalty on the statistical performance in the sense that any randomized polynomial-time test is minimax suboptimal by a polynomial factor in $p$; if $k=\Theta(p^{\alpha})$ for any $\alpha\in({2}/{3},1)$, minimax optimal detection can be attained within constant factors in linear time. Using Schatten norm loss as a representative example, we show that the hardness of attaining the minimax estimation rate can crucially depend on the loss function. Implications on the hardness of support recovery are also obtained.
1309.5927
XML Compression via DAGs
cs.DS cs.DB
Unranked trees can be represented using their minimal dag (directed acyclic graph). For XML this achieves high compression ratios due to their repetitive mark up. Unranked trees are often represented through first child/next sibling (fcns) encoded binary trees. We study the difference in size (= number of edges) of minimal dag versus minimal dag of the fcns encoded binary tree. One main finding is that the size of the dag of the binary tree can never be smaller than the square root of the size of the minimal dag, and that there are examples that match this bound. We introduce a new combined structure, the hybrid dag, which is guaranteed to be smaller than (or equal in size to) both dags. Interestingly, we find through experiments that last child/previous sibling encodings are much better for XML compression via dags, than fcns encodings. We determine the average sizes of unranked and binary dags over a given set of labels (under uniform distribution) in terms of their exact generating functions, and in terms of their asymptotical behavior.
1309.5931
Data Mining using Unguided Symbolic Regression on a Blast Furnace Dataset
cs.NE
In this paper a data mining approach for variable selection and knowledge extraction from datasets is presented. The approach is based on unguided symbolic regression (every variable present in the dataset is treated as the target variable in multiple regression runs) and a novel variable relevance metric for genetic programming. The relevance of each input variable is calculated and a model approximating the target variable is created. The genetic programming configurations with different target variables are executed multiple times to reduce stochastic effects and the aggregated results are displayed as a variable interaction network. This interaction network highlights important system components and implicit relations between the variables. The whole approach is tested on a blast furnace dataset, because of the complexity of the blast furnace and the many interrelations between the variables. Finally the achieved results are discussed with respect to existing knowledge about the blast furnace process.
1309.5942
Colourful Language: Measuring Word-Colour Associations
cs.CL
Since many real-world concepts are associated with colour, for example danger with red, linguistic information is often complimented with the use of appropriate colours in information visualization and product marketing. Yet, there is no comprehensive resource that captures concept-colour associations. We present a method to create a large word-colour association lexicon by crowdsourcing. We focus especially on abstract concepts and emotions to show that even though they cannot be physically visualized, they too tend to have strong colour associations. Finally, we show how word-colour associations manifest themselves in language, and quantify usefulness of co-occurrence and polarity cues in automatically detecting colour associations.
1309.5979
Asymptotic Analysis of LASSOs Solution Path with Implications for Approximate Message Passing
math.ST cs.IT math.IT stat.ML stat.TH
This paper concerns the performance of the LASSO (also knows as basis pursuit denoising) for recovering sparse signals from undersampled, randomized, noisy measurements. We consider the recovery of the signal $x_o \in \mathbb{R}^N$ from $n$ random and noisy linear observations $y= Ax_o + w$, where $A$ is the measurement matrix and $w$ is the noise. The LASSO estimate is given by the solution to the optimization problem $x_o$ with $\hat{x}_{\lambda} = \arg \min_x \frac{1}{2} \|y-Ax\|_2^2 + \lambda \|x\|_1$. Despite major progress in the theoretical analysis of the LASSO solution, little is known about its behavior as a function of the regularization parameter $\lambda$. In this paper we study two questions in the asymptotic setting (i.e., where $N \rightarrow \infty$, $n \rightarrow \infty$ while the ratio $n/N$ converges to a fixed number in $(0,1)$): (i) How does the size of the active set $\|\hat{x}_\lambda\|_0/N$ behave as a function of $\lambda$, and (ii) How does the mean square error $\|\hat{x}_{\lambda} - x_o\|_2^2/N$ behave as a function of $\lambda$? We then employ these results in a new, reliable algorithm for solving LASSO based on approximate message passing (AMP).
1309.5984
An evolutionary approach to Function
cs.AI
Background: Understanding the distinction between function and role is vexing and difficult. While it appears to be useful, in practice this distinction is hard to apply, particularly within biology. Results: I take an evolutionary approach, considering a series of examples, to develop and generate definitions for these concepts. I test them in practice against the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). Finally, I give an axiomatisation and discuss methods for applying these definitions in practice. Conclusions: The definitions in this paper are applicable, formalizing current practice. As such, they make a significant contribution to the use of these concepts within biomedical ontologies.
1309.5993
Combining smart card data and household travel survey to analyze jobs-housing relationships in Beijing
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Location Based Services (LBS) provide a new perspective for spatiotemporally analyzing dynamic urban systems. Research has investigated urban dynamics using GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPS (Global Positioning System), SNS (Social Networking Services) and Wi-Fi techniques. However, less attention has been paid to the analysis of urban structure (especially commuting pattern) using smart card data (SCD), which are widely available in most cities. Additionally, ubiquitous LBS data, although providing rich spatial and temporal information, lacks rich information on the social dimension, which limits its in-depth application. To bridge this gap, this paper combines bus SCD for a one-week period with a one-day household travel survey, as well as a parcel-level land use map to identify job-housing locations and commuting trip routes in Beijing. Two data forms (TRIP and PTD) are proposed, with PTD used for jobs-housing identification and TRIP used for commuting trip route identification. The results of the identification are aggregated in the bus stop and traffic analysis zone (TAZ) scales, respectively. Particularly, commuting trips from three typical residential communities to six main business zones are mapped and compared to analyze commuting patterns in Beijing. The identified commuting trips are validated on three levels by comparison with those from the survey in terms of commuting time and distance, and the positive validation results prove the applicability of our approach. Our experiment, as a first step toward enriching LBS data using conventional survey and urban GIS data, can obtain solid identification results based on rules extracted from existing surveys or censuses.
1309.6001
Co-evolutionary dynamics in social networks: A case study of Twitter
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Complex networks often exhibit co-evolutionary dynamics, meaning that the network topology and the state of nodes or links are coupled, affecting each other in overlapping time scales. We focus on the co-evolutionary dynamics of online social networks, and on Twitter in particular. Monitoring the activity of thousands of Twitter users in real-time, and tracking their followers and tweets/retweets, we propose a method to infer new retweet-driven follower relations. The formation of such relations is much more likely than the exogenous creation of new followers in the absence of any retweets. We identify the most significant factors (reciprocity and the number of retweets that a potential new follower receives) and propose a simple probabilistic model of this effect. We also discuss the implications of such co-evolutionary dynamics on the topology and function of a social network.
1309.6027
Energy-Efficient Optimization for Wireless Information and Power Transfer in Large-Scale MIMO Systems Employing Energy Beamforming
cs.IT math.IT
In this letter, we consider a large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system where the receiver should harvest energy from the transmitter by wireless power transfer to support its wireless information transmission. The energy beamforming in the large-scale MIMO system is utilized to address the challenging problem of long-distance wireless power transfer. Furthermore, considering the limitation of the power in such a system, this letter focuses on the maximization of the energy efficiency of information transmission (bit per Joule) while satisfying the quality-of-service (QoS) requirement, i.e. delay constraint, by jointly optimizing transfer duration and transmit power. By solving the optimization problem, we derive an energy-efficient resource allocation scheme. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
1309.6036
Almost Linear Complexity Methods for Delay-Doppler Channel Estimation
cs.IT math.IT
A fundamental task in wireless communication is channel estimation: Compute the channel parameters a signal undergoes while traveling from a transmitter to a receiver. In the case of delay-Doppler channel, i.e., a signal undergoes only delay and Doppler shifts, a widely used method to compute delay-Doppler parameters is the pseudo-random method. It uses a pseudo-random sequence of length N; and, in case of non-trivial relative velocity between transmitter and receiver, its computational complexity is O(N^2logN) arithmetic operations. In [1] the flag method was introduced to provide a faster algorithm for delay-Doppler channel estimation. It uses specially designed flag sequences and its complexity is O(rNlogN) for channels of sparsity r. In these notes, we introduce the incidence and cross methods for channel estimation. They use triple-chirp and double-chirp sequences of length N, correspondingly. These sequences are closely related to chirp sequences widely used in radar systems. The arithmetic complexity of the incidence and cross methods is O(NlogN + r^3), and O(NlogN + r^2), respectively.
1309.6041
Persistent Monitoring of Events with Stochastic Arrivals at Multiple Stations
cs.RO
This paper introduces a new mobile sensor scheduling problem, involving a single robot tasked with monitoring several events of interest that occur at different locations. Of particular interest is the monitoring of transient events that can not be easily forecast. Application areas range from natural phenomena ({\em e.g.}, monitoring abnormal seismic activity around a volcano using a ground robot) to urban activities ({\em e.g.}, monitoring early formations of traffic congestion using an aerial robot). Motivated by those and many other examples, this paper focuses on problems in which the precise occurrence times of the events are unknown {\em a priori}, but statistics for their inter-arrival times are available. The robot's task is to monitor the events to optimize the following two objectives: {\em (i)} maximize the number of events observed and {\em (ii)} minimize the delay between two consecutive observations of events occurring at the same location. The paper considers the case when a robot is tasked with optimizing the event observations in a balanced manner, following a cyclic patrolling route. First, assuming the cyclic ordering of stations is known, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the optimal solution, and show that the optimal solution has desirable convergence and robustness properties. Our constructive proof also produces an efficient algorithm for computing the unique optimal solution with $O(n)$ time complexity, in which $n$ is the number of stations, with $O(\log n)$ time complexity for incrementally adding or removing stations. Except for the algorithm, most of the analysis remains valid when the cyclic order is unknown. We then provide a polynomial-time approximation scheme that gives a $(1+\epsilon)$-optimal solution for this more general, NP-hard problem.
1309.6047
Non-negative Matrix Factorization with Linear Constraints for Single-Channel Speech Enhancement
cs.SD cs.CL
This paper investigates a non-negative matrix factorization (NMF)-based approach to the semi-supervised single-channel speech enhancement problem where only non-stationary additive noise signals are given. The proposed method relies on sinusoidal model of speech production which is integrated inside NMF framework using linear constraints on dictionary atoms. This method is further developed to regularize harmonic amplitudes. Simple multiplicative algorithms are presented. The experimental evaluation was made on TIMIT corpus mixed with various types of noise. It has been shown that the proposed method outperforms some of the state-of-the-art noise suppression techniques in terms of signal-to-noise ratio.
1309.6073
Improved Analyses for SP and CoSaMP Algorithms in Terms of Restricted Isometry Constants
cs.IT math.IT
In the context of compressed sensing (CS), both Subspace Pursuit (SP) and Compressive Sampling Matching Pursuit (CoSaMP) are very important iterative greedy recovery algorithms which could reduce the recovery complexity greatly comparing with the well-known $\ell_1$-minimization. Restricted isometry property (RIP) and restricted isometry constant (RIC) of measurement matrices which ensure the convergency of iterative algorithms play key roles for the guarantee of successful reconstructions. In this paper, we show that for the $s$-sparse recovery, the RICs are enlarged to $\delta_{3s}<0.4859$ for SP and $\delta_{4s}<0.5$ for CoSaMP, which improve the known results significantly. The proposed results also apply to almost sparse signal and corrupted measurements.
1309.6109
Analysis of Scientific Cloud Computing requirements
cs.DC cs.CE
While the requirements of enterprise and web applications have driven the development of Cloud computing, some of its key features, such as customized environments and rapid elasticity, could also benefit scientific applications. However, neither virtualization techniques nor Cloud-like access to resources is common in scientific computing centers due to the negative perception of the impact that virtualization techniques introduce. In this paper we discuss the feasibility of the IaaS cloud model to satisfy some of the computational science requirements and the main drawbacks that need to be addressed by cloud resource providers so that the maximum benefit can be obtained from a given cloud infrastructure.
1309.6129
Partition-Merge: Distributed Inference and Modularity Optimization
cs.DS cs.AI cs.SI
This paper presents a novel meta algorithm, Partition-Merge (PM), which takes existing centralized algorithms for graph computation and makes them distributed and faster. In a nutshell, PM divides the graph into small subgraphs using our novel randomized partitioning scheme, runs the centralized algorithm on each partition separately, and then stitches the resulting solutions to produce a global solution. We demonstrate the efficiency of the PM algorithm on two popular problems: computation of Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) assignment in an arbitrary pairwise Markov Random Field (MRF), and modularity optimization for community detection. We show that the resulting distributed algorithms for these problems essentially run in time linear in the number of nodes in the graph, and perform as well -- or even better -- than the original centralized algorithm as long as the graph has geometric structures. Here we say a graph has geometric structures, or polynomial growth property, when the number of nodes within distance r of any given node grows no faster than a polynomial function of r. More precisely, if the centralized algorithm is a C-factor approximation with constant C \ge 1, the resulting distributed algorithm is a (C+\delta)-factor approximation for any small \delta>0; but if the centralized algorithm is a non-constant (e.g. logarithmic) factor approximation, then the resulting distributed algorithm becomes a constant factor approximation. For general graphs, we compute explicit bounds on the loss of performance of the resulting distributed algorithm with respect to the centralized algorithm.
1309.6134
Network analysis of the \'{I}slendinga s\"{o}gur - the Sagas of Icelanders
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
The \'{I}slendinga s\"{o}gur - or Sagas of Icelanders - constitute a collection of medieval literature set in Iceland around the late 9th to early 11th centuries, the so-called Saga Age. They purport to describe events during the period around the settlement of Iceland and the generations immediately following and constitute an important element of world literature thanks to their unique narrative style. Although their historicity is a matter of scholarly debate, the narratives contain interwoven and overlapping plots involving thousands of characters and interactions between them. Here we perform a network analysis of the \'{I}slendinga s\"{o}gur in an attempt to gather quantitative information on interrelationships between characters and to compare saga society to other social networks.
1309.6151
Noise Weighting in the Design of {\Delta}{\Sigma} Modulators (with a Psychoacoustic Coder as an Example)
cs.IT math.IT
A design flow for {\Delta}{\Sigma} modulators is illustrated, allowing quantization noise to be shaped according to an arbitrary weighting profile. Being based on FIR NTFs, possibly with high order, the flow is best suited for digital architectures. The work builds on a recent proposal where the modulator is matched to the reconstruction filter, showing that this type of optimization can benefit a wide range of applications where noise (including in-band noise) is known to have a different impact at different frequencies. The design of a multiband modulator, a modulator avoiding DC noise, and an audio modulator capable of distributing quantization artifacts according to a psychoacoustic model are discussed as examples. A software toolbox is provided as a general design aid and to replicate the proposed results.
1309.6162
JRC-Names: A freely available, highly multilingual named entity resource
cs.CL
This paper describes a new, freely available, highly multilingual named entity resource for person and organisation names that has been compiled over seven years of large-scale multilingual news analysis combined with Wikipedia mining, resulting in 205,000 per-son and organisation names plus about the same number of spelling variants written in over 20 different scripts and in many more languages. This resource, produced as part of the Europe Media Monitor activity (EMM, http://emm.newsbrief.eu/overview.html), can be used for a number of purposes. These include improving name search in databases or on the internet, seeding machine learning systems to learn named entity recognition rules, improve machine translation results, and more. We describe here how this resource was created; we give statistics on its current size; we address the issue of morphological inflection; and we give details regarding its functionality. Updates to this resource will be made available daily.
1309.6176
Feature Learning with Gaussian Restricted Boltzmann Machine for Robust Speech Recognition
cs.CL cs.LG cs.SD
In this paper, we first present a new variant of Gaussian restricted Boltzmann machine (GRBM) called multivariate Gaussian restricted Boltzmann machine (MGRBM), with its definition and learning algorithm. Then we propose using a learned GRBM or MGRBM to extract better features for robust speech recognition. Our experiments on Aurora2 show that both GRBM-extracted and MGRBM-extracted feature performs much better than Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) with either HMM-GMM or hybrid HMM-deep neural network (DNN) acoustic model, and MGRBM-extracted feature is slightly better.
1309.6185
Acronym recognition and processing in 22 languages
cs.CL
We are presenting work on recognising acronyms of the form Long-Form (Short-Form) such as "International Monetary Fund (IMF)" in millions of news articles in twenty-two languages, as part of our more general effort to recognise entities and their variants in news text and to use them for the automatic analysis of the news, including the linking of related news across languages. We show how the acronym recognition patterns, initially developed for medical terms, needed to be adapted to the more general news domain and we present evaluation results. We describe our effort to automatically merge the numerous long-form variants referring to the same short-form, while keeping non-related long-forms separate. Finally, we provide extensive statistics on the frequency and the distribution of short-form/long-form pairs across languages.
1309.6195
Scan-based Compressed Terahertz Imaging and Real-Time Reconstruction via the Complex-valued Fast Block Sparse Bayesian Learning Algorithm
cs.CV
Compressed Sensing based Terahertz imaging (CS-THz) is a computational imaging technique. It uses only one THz receiver to accumulate the random modulated image measurements where the original THz image is reconstruct from these measurements using compressed sensing solvers. The advantage of the CS-THz is its reduced acquisition time compared with the raster scan mode. However, when it applied to large-scale two-dimensional (2D) imaging, the increased dimension resulted in both high computational complexity and excessive memory usage. In this paper, we introduced a novel CS-based THz imaging system that progressively compressed the THz image column by column. Therefore, the CS-THz system could be simplified with a much smaller sized modulator and reduced dimension. In order to utilize the block structure and the correlation of adjacent columns of the THz image, a complex-valued block sparse Bayesian learning algorithm was proposed. We conducted systematic evaluation of state-of-the-art CS algorithms under the scan based CS-THz architecture. The compression ratios and the choices of the sensing matrices were analyzed in detail using both synthetic and real-life THz images. Simulation results showed that both the scan based architecture and the proposed recovery algorithm were superior and efficient for large scale CS-THz applications.
1309.6200
On the Dispersions of the Gel'fand-Pinsker Channel and Dirty Paper Coding
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies second-order coding rates for memoryless channels with a state sequence known non-causally at the encoder. In the case of finite alphabets, an achievability result is obtained using constant-composition random coding, and by using a small fraction of the block to transmit the type of the state sequence. For error probabilities less than 1/2, it is shown that the second-order rate improves on an existing one based on i.i.d. random coding. In the Gaussian case (dirty paper coding) with an almost-sure power constraint, an achievability result is obtained used using random coding over the surface of a sphere, and using a small fraction of the block to transmit a quantized description of the state power. It is shown that the second-order asymptotics are identical to the single-user Gaussian channel of the same input power without a state.
1309.6202
Sentiment Analysis in the News
cs.CL
Recent years have brought a significant growth in the volume of research in sentiment analysis, mostly on highly subjective text types (movie or product reviews). The main difference these texts have with news articles is that their target is clearly defined and unique across the text. Following different annotation efforts and the analysis of the issues encountered, we realised that news opinion mining is different from that of other text types. We identified three subtasks that need to be addressed: definition of the target; separation of the good and bad news content from the good and bad sentiment expressed on the target; and analysis of clearly marked opinion that is expressed explicitly, not needing interpretation or the use of world knowledge. Furthermore, we distinguish three different possible views on newspaper articles - author, reader and text, which have to be addressed differently at the time of analysing sentiment. Given these definitions, we present work on mining opinions about entities in English language news, in which (a) we test the relative suitability of various sentiment dictionaries and (b) we attempt to separate positive or negative opinion from good or bad news. In the experiments described here, we tested whether or not subject domain-defining vocabulary should be ignored. Results showed that this idea is more appropriate in the context of news opinion mining and that the approaches taking this into consideration produce a better performance.
1309.6204
A Friendship Privacy Attack on Friends and 2-Distant Neighbors in Social Networks
cs.SI cs.CR physics.soc-ph
In an undirected social graph, a friendship link involves two users and the friendship is visible in both the users' friend lists. Such a dual visibility of the friendship may raise privacy threats. This is because both users can separately control the visibility of a friendship link to other users and their privacy policies for the link may not be consistent. Even if one of them conceals the link from a third user, the third user may find such a friendship link from another user's friend list. In addition, as most users allow their friends to see their friend lists in most social network systems, an adversary can exploit the inconsistent policies to launch privacy attacks to identify and infer many of a targeted user's friends. In this paper, we propose, analyze and evaluate such an attack which is called Friendship Identification and Inference (FII) attack. In a FII attack scenario, we assume that an adversary can only see his friend list and the friend lists of his friends who do not hide the friend lists from him. Then, a FII attack contains two attack steps: 1) friend identification and 2) friend inference. In the friend identification step, the adversary tries to identify a target's friends based on his friend list and those of his friends. In the friend inference step, the adversary attempts to infer the target's friends by using the proposed random walk with restart approach. We present experimental results using three real social network datasets and show that FII attacks are generally efficient and effective when adversaries and targets are friends or 2-distant neighbors. We also comprehensively analyze the attack results in order to find what values of parameters and network features could promote FII attacks. Currently, most popular social network systems with an undirected friendship graph, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare, are susceptible to FII attacks.
1309.6225
Kinetics of node splitting in evolving complex networks
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
We introduce a collection of complex networks generated by a combination of preferential attachment and a previously unexamined process of "splitting" nodes of degree $k$ into $k$ nodes of degree 1. Four networks are considered, each evolves at each time step by either preferential attachment, with probability $p$, or splitting with probability $1-p$. Two methods of attachment are considered; first, attachment of an edge between a newly created node and existing node in the network, and secondly by attachment of an edge between two existing nodes. Splitting is also considered in two separate ways; first by selecting each node with equal probability and secondly, selecting the node with probability proportional to its degree. Exact solutions for the degree distributions are found and scale-free structure is exhibited in those networks where the candidates for splitting are chosen with uniform probability, those that are chosen preferentially are distributed with a power law with exponential cut-off.
1309.6226
Automation of Mathematical Induction as part of the History of Logic
cs.AI
We review the history of the automation of mathematical induction
1309.6270
Optimal Resource Allocation for Network Protection Against Spreading Processes
math.OC cs.SY physics.soc-ph
We study the problem of containing spreading processes in arbitrary directed networks by distributing protection resources throughout the nodes of the network. We consider two types of protection resources are available: (i) Preventive resources able to defend nodes against the spreading (such as vaccines in a viral infection process), and (ii) corrective resources able to neutralize the spreading after it has reached a node (such as antidotes). We assume that both preventive and corrective resources have an associated cost and study the problem of finding the cost-optimal distribution of resources throughout the nodes of the network. We analyze these questions in the context of viral spreading processes in directed networks. We study the following two problems: (i) Given a fixed budget, find the optimal allocation of preventive and corrective resources in the network to achieve the highest level of containment, and (ii) when a budget is not specified, find the minimum budget required to control the spreading process. We show that both resource allocation problems can be solved in polynomial time using Geometric Programming (GP) for arbitrary directed graphs of nonidentical nodes and a wide class of cost functions. Furthermore, our approach allows to optimize simultaneously over both preventive and corrective resources, even in the case of cost functions being node-dependent. We illustrate our approach by designing optimal protection strategies to contain an epidemic outbreak that propagates through an air transportation network.
1309.6297
Generating Explanations for Biomedical Queries
cs.AI cs.LO
We introduce novel mathematical models and algorithms to generate (shortest or k different) explanations for biomedical queries, using answer set programming. We implement these algorithms and integrate them in BIOQUERY-ASP. We illustrate the usefulness of these methods with some complex biomedical queries related to drug discovery, over the biomedical knowledge resources PHARMGKB, DRUGBANK, BIOGRID, CTD, SIDER, DISEASE ONTOLOGY and ORPHADATA. To appear in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).
1309.6301
Solving OSCAR regularization problems by proximal splitting algorithms
cs.CV cs.LG stat.ML
The OSCAR (octagonal selection and clustering algorithm for regression) regularizer consists of a L_1 norm plus a pair-wise L_inf norm (responsible for its grouping behavior) and was proposed to encourage group sparsity in scenarios where the groups are a priori unknown. The OSCAR regularizer has a non-trivial proximity operator, which limits its applicability. We reformulate this regularizer as a weighted sorted L_1 norm, and propose its grouping proximity operator (GPO) and approximate proximity operator (APO), thus making state-of-the-art proximal splitting algorithms (PSAs) available to solve inverse problems with OSCAR regularization. The GPO is in fact the APO followed by additional grouping and averaging operations, which are costly in time and storage, explaining the reason why algorithms with APO are much faster than that with GPO. The convergences of PSAs with GPO are guaranteed since GPO is an exact proximity operator. Although convergence of PSAs with APO is may not be guaranteed, we have experimentally found that APO behaves similarly to GPO when the regularization parameter of the pair-wise L_inf norm is set to an appropriately small value. Experiments on recovery of group-sparse signals (with unknown groups) show that PSAs with APO are very fast and accurate.
1309.6307
On the Non-Uniqueness of Solutions to the Average Cost HJB for Controlled Diffusions with Near-Monotone Costs
cs.SY math.OC
We present a theorem for verification of optimality of controlled diffusions under the average cost criterion with near-monotone running cost, without invoking any blanket stability assumptions. The implications of this result to the policy iteration algorithm are also discussed.
1309.6347
Tracking Sentiment in Mail: How Genders Differ on Emotional Axes
cs.CL
With the widespread use of email, we now have access to unprecedented amounts of text that we ourselves have written. In this paper, we show how sentiment analysis can be used in tandem with effective visualizations to quantify and track emotions in many types of mail. We create a large word--emotion association lexicon by crowdsourcing, and use it to compare emotions in love letters, hate mail, and suicide notes. We show that there are marked differences across genders in how they use emotion words in work-place email. For example, women use many words from the joy--sadness axis, whereas men prefer terms from the fear--trust axis. Finally, we show visualizations that can help people track emotions in their emails.
1309.6348
Decentralized identification and control of networks of coupled mobile platforms through adaptive synchronization of chaos
nlin.AO cs.RO
In this paper we propose an application of adaptive synchronization of chaos to detect changes in the topology of a mobile robotic network. We assume that the network may evolve in time due to the relative motion of the mobile robots and due to unknown environmental conditions, such as the presence of obstacles in the environment. We consider that each robotic agent is equipped with a chaotic oscillator whose state is propagated to the other robots through wireless communication, with the goal of synchronizing the oscillators. We introduce an adaptive strategy that each agent independently implements to: (i) estimate the net coupling of all the oscillators in its neighborhood and (ii) synchronize the state of the oscillators onto the same time evolution. We show that by using this strategy, synchronization can be attained and changes in the network topology can be detected. We go one step forward and consider the possibility of using this information to control the mobile network. We show the potential applicability of our technique to the problem of maintaining a formation between a set of mobile platforms, which operate in an inhomogeneous and uncertain environment. We discuss the importance of using chaotic oscillators and validate our methodology by numerical simulations.
1309.6352
Using Nuances of Emotion to Identify Personality
cs.CL
Past work on personality detection has shown that frequency of lexical categories such as first person pronouns, past tense verbs, and sentiment words have significant correlations with personality traits. In this paper, for the first time, we show that fine affect (emotion) categories such as that of excitement, guilt, yearning, and admiration are significant indicators of personality. Additionally, we perform experiments to show that the gains provided by the fine affect categories are not obtained by using coarse affect categories alone or with specificity features alone. We employ these features in five SVM classifiers for detecting five personality traits through essays. We find that the use of fine emotion features leads to statistically significant improvement over a competitive baseline, whereas the use of coarse affect and specificity features does not.
1309.6369
Predicting Adoption Probabilities in Social Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
In a social network, adoption probability refers to the probability that a social entity will adopt a product, service, or opinion in the foreseeable future. Such probabilities are central to fundamental issues in social network analysis, including the influence maximization problem. In practice, adoption probabilities have significant implications for applications ranging from social network-based target marketing to political campaigns; yet, predicting adoption probabilities has not received sufficient research attention. Building on relevant social network theories, we identify and operationalize key factors that affect adoption decisions: social influence, structural equivalence, entity similarity, and confounding factors. We then develop the locally-weighted expectation-maximization method for Na\"ive Bayesian learning to predict adoption probabilities on the basis of these factors. The principal challenge addressed in this study is how to predict adoption probabilities in the presence of confounding factors that are generally unobserved. Using data from two large-scale social networks, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The empirical results also suggest that cascade methods primarily using social influence to predict adoption probabilities offer limited predictive power, and that confounding factors are critical to adoption probability predictions.
1309.6379
Diffeomorphic Metric Mapping and Probabilistic Atlas Generation of Hybrid Diffusion Imaging based on BFOR Signal Basis
cs.CV
We propose a large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping algorithm to align multiple b-value diffusion weighted imaging (mDWI) data, specifically acquired via hybrid diffusion imaging (HYDI), denoted as LDDMM-HYDI. We then propose a Bayesian model for estimating the white matter atlas from HYDIs. We adopt the work given in Hosseinbor et al. (2012) and represent the q-space diffusion signal with the Bessel Fourier orientation reconstruction (BFOR) signal basis. The BFOR framework provides the representation of mDWI in the q-space and thus reduces memory requirement. In addition, since the BFOR signal basis is orthonormal, the L2 norm that quantifies the differences in the q-space signals of any two mDWI datasets can be easily computed as the sum of the squared differences in the BFOR expansion coefficients. In this work, we show that the reorientation of the $q$-space signal due to spatial transformation can be easily defined on the BFOR signal basis. We incorporate the BFOR signal basis into the LDDMM framework and derive the gradient descent algorithm for LDDMM-HYDI with explicit orientation optimization. Additionally, we extend the previous Bayesian atlas estimation framework for scalar-valued images to HYDIs and derive the expectation-maximization algorithm for solving the HYDI atlas estimation problem. Using real HYDI datasets, we show the Bayesian model generates the white matter atlas with anatomical details. Moreover, we show that it is important to consider the variation of mDWI reorientation due to a small change in diffeomorphic transformation in the LDDMM-HYDI optimization and to incorporate the full information of HYDI for aligning mDWI.
1309.6390
Contextually learnt detection of unusual motion-based behaviour in crowded public spaces
cs.CV
In this paper we are interested in analyzing behaviour in crowded public places at the level of holistic motion. Our aim is to learn, without user input, strong scene priors or labelled data, the scope of "normal behaviour" for a particular scene and thus alert to novelty in unseen footage. The first contribution is a low-level motion model based on what we term tracklet primitives, which are scene-specific elementary motions. We propose a clustering-based algorithm for tracklet estimation from local approximations to tracks of appearance features. This is followed by two methods for motion novelty inference from tracklet primitives: (a) we describe an approach based on a non-hierarchial ensemble of Markov chains as a means of capturing behavioural characteristics at different scales, and (b) a more flexible alternative which exhibits a higher generalizing power by accounting for constraints introduced by intentionality and goal-oriented planning of human motion in a particular scene. Evaluated on a 2h long video of a busy city marketplace, both algorithms are shown to be successful at inferring unusual behaviour, the latter model achieving better performance for novelties at a larger spatial scale.
1309.6391
Multiple-object tracking in cluttered and crowded public spaces
cs.CV
This paper addresses the problem of tracking moving objects of variable appearance in challenging scenes rich with features and texture. Reliable tracking is of pivotal importance in surveillance applications. It is made particularly difficult by the nature of objects encountered in such scenes: these too change in appearance and scale, and are often articulated (e.g. humans). We propose a method which uses fast motion detection and segmentation as a constraint for both building appearance models and their robust propagation (matching) in time. The appearance model is based on sets of local appearances automatically clustered using spatio-kinetic similarity, and is updated with each new appearance seen. This integration of all seen appearances of a tracked object makes it extremely resilient to errors caused by occlusion and the lack of permanence of due to low data quality, appearance change or background clutter. These theoretical strengths of our algorithm are empirically demonstrated on two hour long video footage of a busy city marketplace.
1309.6395
Optimal Selection of Spectrum Sensing Duration for an Energy Harvesting Cognitive Radio
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider a time-slotted cognitive radio (CR) setting with buffered and energy harvesting primary and CR users. At the beginning of each time slot, the CR user probabilistically chooses the spectrum sensing duration from a predefined set. If the primary user (PU) is sensed to be inactive, the CR user accesses the channel immediately. The CR user optimizes the sensing duration probabilities in order to maximize its mean data service rate with constraints on the stability of the primary and cognitive queues. The optimization problem is split into two subproblems. The first is a linear-fractional program, and the other is a linear program. Both subproblems can be solved efficiently.
1309.6433
A Fuzzy expert system for goalkeeper quality recognition
cs.AI
Goalkeeper (GK) is an expert in soccer and goalkeeping is a complete professional job. In fact, achieving success seems impossible without a reliable GK. His effect in successes and failures is more dominant than other players. The most visible mistakes in a game are those of goalkeeper's. In this paper the expert fuzzy system is used as a suitable tool to study the quality of a goalkeeper and compare it with others. Previously done researches are used to find the goalkeepers' indexes in soccer. Soccer experts have found that a successful GK should have some qualifications. A new pattern is offered here which is called "Soccer goalkeeper quality recognition using fuzzy expert systems". This pattern has some important capabilities. Firstly, among some goalkeepers the one with the best quality for the main team arrange can be chosen. Secondly, the need to expert coaches for choosing a GK using their senses and experiences decreases a lot. Thirdly, in the survey of a GK, quantitative criteria can be included, and finally this pattern is simple and easy to understand.
1309.6449
Exploring Programmable Self-Assembly in Non-DNA based Molecular Computing
cs.CC cs.AI cs.CE physics.comp-ph physics.data-an
Self-assembly is a phenomenon observed in nature at all scales where autonomous entities build complex structures, without external influences nor centralised master plan. Modelling such entities and programming correct interactions among them is crucial for controlling the manufacture of desired complex structures at the molecular and supramolecular scale. This work focuses on a programmability model for non DNA-based molecules and complex behaviour analysis of their self-assembled conformations. In particular, we look into modelling, programming and simulation of porphyrin molecules self-assembly and apply Kolgomorov complexity-based techniques to classify and assess simulation results in terms of information content. The analysis focuses on phase transition, clustering, variability and parameter discovery which as a whole pave the way to the notion of complex systems programmability.
1309.6455
Maximizing the Spread of Stable Influence: Leveraging Norm-driven Moral-Motivation for Green Behavior Change in Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
In an effort to understand why individuals choose to participate in personally-expensive pro-environmental behaviors, environmental and behavioral economists have examined a moral-motivation model in which the decision to adopt a pro-environmental behavior depends on the society-wide market share of that behavior. An increasing body of practical research on adoption of pro-environmental behavior emphasizes the importance of encouragement from local social contacts and messaging about locally-embraced norms: we respond by extending the moral-motivation model to a social networks setting. We obtain a new decision rule: an individual adopts a pro-environmental behavior if he or she observes a certain threshold of adoption within their local social neighborhood. This gives rise to a concurrent update process which describes adoption of a pro-environmental behavior spreading through a network. The original moral-motivation model corresponds to the special case of our network version in a complete graph. By improving convergence results, we formulate modest-size Integer Programs that accurately (but not efficiently) find minimum-size sets of nodes that convert the entire network, or alternately that maximize long-term adoption in the network given a limited number of nodes which may be temporarily converted. Issues of stability in determining long-term adoption are key. We give hardness of approximation results for these optimization problems. We demonstrate that there exist classes of networks which qualitatively have severely different behavior than the non-networked version, and provide preliminary computational results in in modestly-sized highly-clustered small-world networks related to the famous small-world networks of Watts and Strogatz.
1309.6484
Capacity-aware back-pressure traffic signal control
cs.SY
The control of a network of signalized intersections is considered. Previous work demonstrates that the so-called back-pressure control provides stability guarantees, assuming infinite queues capacities. In this paper, we highlight the failing of current back-pressure control under finite capacities by identifying sources of non work-conservation and congestion propagation. We propose the use of a normalized pressure which guarantees work conservation and mitigates congestion propagation, while ensuring fairness at low traffic densities, and recovering original back-pressure as capacities grow to infinity. This capacity-aware back-pressure control allows to improve performance as congestion increases, as indicated by simulation results, and keeps the key benefits of back-pressure: ability to be distributed over intersections and O(1) complexity.
1309.6487
A Unified Framework for Representation-based Subspace Clustering of Out-of-sample and Large-scale Data
cs.LG cs.CV stat.ML
Under the framework of spectral clustering, the key of subspace clustering is building a similarity graph which describes the neighborhood relations among data points. Some recent works build the graph using sparse, low-rank, and $\ell_2$-norm-based representation, and have achieved state-of-the-art performance. However, these methods have suffered from the following two limitations. First, the time complexities of these methods are at least proportional to the cube of the data size, which make those methods inefficient for solving large-scale problems. Second, they cannot cope with out-of-sample data that are not used to construct the similarity graph. To cluster each out-of-sample datum, the methods have to recalculate the similarity graph and the cluster membership of the whole data set. In this paper, we propose a unified framework which makes representation-based subspace clustering algorithms feasible to cluster both out-of-sample and large-scale data. Under our framework, the large-scale problem is tackled by converting it as out-of-sample problem in the manner of "sampling, clustering, coding, and classifying". Furthermore, we give an estimation for the error bounds by treating each subspace as a point in a hyperspace. Extensive experimental results on various benchmark data sets show that our methods outperform several recently-proposed scalable methods in clustering large-scale data set.
1309.6527
Describing Papers and Reviewers' Competences by Taxonomy of Keywords
cs.IR cs.DL
This article focuses on the importance of the precise calculation of similarity factors between papers and reviewers for performing a fair and accurate automatic assignment of reviewers to papers. It suggests that papers and reviewers' competences should be described by taxonomy of keywords so that the implied hierarchical structure allows similarity measures to take into account not only the number of exactly matching keywords, but in case of non-matching ones to calculate how semantically close they are. The paper also suggests a similarity measure derived from the well-known and widely-used Dice's coefficient, but adapted in a way it could be also applied between sets whose elements are semantically related to each other (as concepts in taxonomy are). It allows a non-zero similarity factor to be accurately calculated between a paper and a reviewer even if they do not share any keyword in common.
1309.6545
Distinguishing Infections on Different Graph Topologies
cs.SI q-bio.PE
The history of infections and epidemics holds famous examples where understanding, containing and ultimately treating an outbreak began with understanding its mode of spread. Influenza, HIV and most computer viruses, spread person to person, device to device, through contact networks; Cholera, Cancer, and seasonal allergies, on the other hand, do not. In this paper we study two fundamental questions of detection: first, given a snapshot view of a (perhaps vanishingly small) fraction of those infected, under what conditions is an epidemic spreading via contact (e.g., Influenza), distinguishable from a "random illness" operating independently of any contact network (e.g., seasonal allergies); second, if we do have an epidemic, under what conditions is it possible to determine which network of interactions is the main cause of the spread -- the causative network -- without any knowledge of the epidemic, other than the identity of a minuscule subsample of infected nodes? The core, therefore, of this paper, is to obtain an understanding of the diagnostic power of network information. We derive sufficient conditions networks must satisfy for these problems to be identifiable, and produce efficient, highly scalable algorithms that solve these problems. We show that the identifiability condition we give is fairly mild, and in particular, is satisfied by two common graph topologies: the grid, and the Erdos-Renyi graphs.
1309.6550
Loop Calculus for Non-Binary Alphabets using Concepts from Information Geometry
cs.IT cond-mat.stat-mech math.IT
The Bethe approximation is a well-known approximation of the partition function used in statistical physics. Recently, an equality relating the partition function and its Bethe approximation was obtained for graphical models with binary variables by Chertkov and Chernyak. In this equality, the multiplicative error in the Bethe approximation is represented as a weighted sum over all generalized loops in the graphical model. In this paper, the equality is generalized to graphical models with non-binary alphabet using concepts from information geometry.
1309.6584
Should I Stay or Should I Go: Coordinating Biological Needs with Continuously-updated Assessments of the Environment
cs.NE cs.LG q-bio.NC
This paper presents Wanderer, a model of how autonomous adaptive systems coordinate internal biological needs with moment-by-moment assessments of the probabilities of events in the external world. The extent to which Wanderer moves about or explores its environment reflects the relative activations of two competing motivational sub-systems: one represents the need to acquire energy and it excites exploration, and the other represents the need to avoid predators and it inhibits exploration. The environment contains food, predators, and neutral stimuli. Wanderer responds to these events in a way that is adaptive in the short turn, and reassesses the probabilities of these events so that it can modify its long term behaviour appropriately. When food appears, Wanderer be-comes satiated and exploration temporarily decreases. When a predator appears, Wanderer both decreases exploration in the short term, and becomes more "cautious" about exploring in the future. Wanderer also forms associations between neutral features and salient ones (food and predators) when they are present at the same time, and uses these associations to guide its behaviour.
1309.6603
The Random Bit Complexity of Mobile Robots Scattering
cs.DS cs.CC cs.DC cs.MA cs.RO
We consider the problem of scattering $n$ robots in a two dimensional continuous space. As this problem is impossible to solve in a deterministic manner, all solutions must be probabilistic. We investigate the amount of randomness (that is, the number of random bits used by the robots) that is required to achieve scattering. We first prove that $n \log n$ random bits are necessary to scatter $n$ robots in any setting. Also, we give a sufficient condition for a scattering algorithm to be random bit optimal. As it turns out that previous solutions for scattering satisfy our condition, they are hence proved random bit optimal for the scattering problem. Then, we investigate the time complexity of scattering when strong multiplicity detection is not available. We prove that such algorithms cannot converge in constant time in the general case and in $o(\log \log n)$ rounds for random bits optimal scattering algorithms. However, we present a family of scattering algorithms that converge as fast as needed without using multiplicity detection. Also, we put forward a specific protocol of this family that is random bit optimal ($n \log n$ random bits are used) and time optimal ($\log \log n$ rounds are used). This improves the time complexity of previous results in the same setting by a $\log n$ factor. Aside from characterizing the random bit complexity of mobile robot scattering, our study also closes its time complexity gap with and without strong multiplicity detection (that is, $O(1)$ time complexity is only achievable when strong multiplicity detection is available, and it is possible to approach it as needed otherwise).
1309.6608
Assessment of OpenStreetMap Data - A Review
cs.CY cs.DB cs.SI
The meaning and purposes of web has been changing and evolving day by day. Web 2. 0 encouraged more contribution by the end users. This movement provided revolutionary methods of sharing and computing data by crowdsourcing such as OpenStreetmap, also called "the wikification of maps" by some researchers. When crowdsourcing collects huge data with help of general public with varying level of mapping experience, the focus of researcher should be on analysing the data rather than collecting it. Researchers have assessed the quality of OpenStreetMap data by comparing it with proprietary data or data of governmental map agencies. This study reviews the research work for assessment of Open- StreetMap Data and also discusses about the future directions.
1309.6613
Continuous-time Proportional-Integral Distributed Optimization for Networked Systems
cs.SY math.OC
In this paper we explore the relationship between dual decomposition and the consensus-based method for distributed optimization. The relationship is developed by examining the similarities between the two approaches and their relationship to gradient-based constrained optimization. By formulating each algorithm in continuous-time, it is seen that both approaches use a gradient method for optimization with one using a proportional control term and the other using an integral control term to drive the system to the constraint set. Therefore, a significant contribution of this paper is to combine these methods to develop a continuous-time proportional-integral distributed optimization method. Furthermore, we establish convergence using Lyapunov stability techniques and utilizing properties from the network structure of the multi-agent system.
1309.6627
A Unified Filter for Simultaneous Input and State Estimation of Linear Discrete-time Stochastic Systems
math.OC cs.SY math.DS
In this paper, we present a unified optimal and exponentially stable filter for linear discrete-time stochastic systems that simultaneously estimates the states and unknown inputs in an unbiased minimum-variance sense, without making any assumptions on the direct feedthrough matrix. We also derive input and state observability/detectability conditions, and analyze their connection to the convergence and stability of the estimator. We discuss two variations of the filter and their optimality and stability properties, and show that filters in the literature, including the Kalman filter, are special cases of the filter derived in this paper. Finally, illustrative examples are given to demonstrate the performance of the unified unbiased minimum-variance filter.
1309.6629
Stability of the Centrality of Unions of Networks on the Same Vertex Set
nlin.AO cs.SI math.CO
Let $G^1(V,E_1)$ and $G^2(V,E_2)$ be two networks on the same vertex set $V$ and consider the union of edges $G(V, E_1 \cup E_2)$. This paper studies the stability of the Degree, Betweenness and Eigenvector Centrality of the resultant network, $G(V, E_1 \cup E_2)$. Specifically assume $v^1_{max}$ and $v^c_{max}$ are the highest centrality vertices of $G^1(V,E_1)$ and $G(V, E_1 \cup E_2)$ respectively, we want to find $Pr(v^1_{max} = v^c_{max})$.
1309.6650
An Inter-lingual Reference Approach For Multi-Lingual Ontology Matching
cs.CL cs.DL
Ontologies are considered as the backbone of the Semantic Web. With the rising success of the Semantic Web, the number of participating communities from different countries is constantly increasing. The growing number of ontologies available in different natural languages leads to an interoperability problem. In this paper, we discuss several approaches for ontology matching; examine similarities and differences, identify weaknesses, and compare the existing automated approaches with the manual approaches for integrating multilingual ontologies. In addition to that, we propose a new architecture for a multilingual ontology matching service. As a case study we used an example of two multilingual enterprise ontologies - the university ontology of Freie Universitaet Berlin and the ontology for Fayoum University in Egypt.
1309.6683
Dynamic Structural Equation Models for Social Network Topology Inference
cs.SI
Many real-world processes evolve in cascades over complex networks, whose topologies are often unobservable and change over time. However, the so-termed adoption times when blogs mention popular news items, individuals in a community catch an infectious disease, or consumers adopt a trendy electronics product are typically known, and are implicitly dependent on the underlying network. To infer the network topology, a \textit{dynamic} structural equation model is adopted to capture the relationship between observed adoption times and the unknown edge weights. Assuming a slowly time-varying topology and leveraging the sparse connectivity inherent to social networks, edge weights are estimated by minimizing a sparsity-regularized exponentially-weighted least-squares criterion. To this end, solvers with complementary strengths are developed by leveraging (pseudo) real-time sparsity-promoting proximal gradient iterations, the improved convergence rate of accelerated variants, or reduced computational complexity of stochastic gradient descent. Numerical tests with both synthetic and real data demonstrate the effectiveness of the novel algorithms in unveiling sparse dynamically-evolving topologies, while accounting for external influences in the adoption times. Key events in the recent succession of political leadership in North Korea, explain connectivity changes observed in the associated network inferred from global cascades of online media.
1309.6687
Removal of Data Incest in Multi-agent Social Learning in Social Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Motivated by online reputation systems, we investigate social learning in a network where agents interact on a time dependent graph to estimate an underlying state of nature. Agents record their own private observations, then update their private beliefs about the state of nature using Bayes' rule. Based on their belief, each agent then chooses an action (rating) from a finite set and transmits this action over the social network. An important consequence of such social learning over a network is the ruinous multiple re-use of information known as data incest (or mis-information propagation). In this paper, the data incest management problem in social learning context is formulated on a directed acyclic graph. We give necessary and sufficient conditions on the graph topology of social interactions to eliminate data incest. A data incest removal algorithm is proposed such that the public belief of social learning (and hence the actions of agents) is not affected by data incest propagation. This results in an online reputation system with a higher trust rating. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance of the proposed optimal data incest removal algorithm.
1309.6690
Training-Based Synchronization and Channel Estimation in AF Two-Way Relaying Networks
cs.IT math.IT
Two-way relaying networks (TWRNs) allow for more bandwidth efficient use of the available spectrum since they allow for simultaneous information exchange between two users with the assistance of an intermediate relay node. However, due to superposition of signals at the relay node, the received signal at the user terminals is affected by \emph{multiple impairments}, i.e., channel gains, timing offsets, and carrier frequency offsets, that need to be jointly estimated and compensated. This paper presents a training-based system model for amplify-and-forward (AF) TWRNs in the presence of multiple impairments and proposes maximum likelihood and differential evolution based algorithms for joint estimation of these impairments. The Cramer-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) for the joint estimation of multiple impairments are derived. A minimum mean-square error based receiver is then proposed to compensate the effect of multiple impairments and decode each user's signal. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed estimators is very close to the derived CRLBs at moderate-to-high signal-to-noise-ratios. It is also shown that the bit-error rate performance of the overall AF TWRN is close to a TWRN that is based on assumption of perfect knowledge of the synchronization parameters.
1309.6691
Characterness: An Indicator of Text in the Wild
cs.CV
Text in an image provides vital information for interpreting its contents, and text in a scene can aide with a variety of tasks from navigation, to obstacle avoidance, and odometry. Despite its value, however, identifying general text in images remains a challenging research problem. Motivated by the need to consider the widely varying forms of natural text, we propose a bottom-up approach to the problem which reflects the `characterness' of an image region. In this sense our approach mirrors the move from saliency detection methods to measures of `objectness'. In order to measure the characterness we develop three novel cues that are tailored for character detection, and a Bayesian method for their integration. Because text is made up of sets of characters, we then design a Markov random field (MRF) model so as to exploit the inherent dependencies between characters. We experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of our characterness cues as well as the advantage of Bayesian multi-cue integration. The proposed text detector outperforms state-of-the-art methods on a few benchmark scene text detection datasets. We also show that our measurement of `characterness' is superior than state-of-the-art saliency detection models when applied to the same task.
1309.6693
Improving Transient Performance of Adaptive Control Architectures using Frequency-Limited System Error Dynamics
math.DS cs.SY
We develop an adaptive control architecture to achieve stabilization and command following of uncertain dynamical systems with improved transient performance. Our framework consists of a new reference system and an adaptive controller. The proposed reference system captures a desired closed-loop dynamical system behavior modified by a mismatch term representing the high-frequency content between the uncertain dynamical system and this reference system, i.e., the system error. In particular, this mismatch term allows to limit the frequency content of the system error dynamics, which is used to drive the adaptive controller. It is shown that this key feature of our framework yields fast adaptation with- out incurring high-frequency oscillations in the transient performance. We further show the effects of design parameters on the system performance, analyze closeness of the uncertain dynamical system to the unmodified (ideal) reference system, discuss robustness of the proposed approach with respect to time-varying uncertainties and disturbances, and make connections to gradient minimization and classical control theory.
1309.6701
Generalization of Rashmi-Shah-Kumar Minimum-Storage-Regenerating Codes
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we propose a generalized version of the Rashmi-Shah-Kumar Minimum-Storage-Regenerating(RSK-MSR) codes based on the product-matrix framework. For any $(n,k,d)$ such that $d \geq 2k-2$ and $d \leq n-1$, we can directly construct an $(n,k,d)$ MSR code without constructing a larger MSR code and shortening of the larger MSR code. As a result, the size of a finite field over which the proposed code is defined is smaller than or equal to the size of a finite field over which the RSK-MSR code is defined. In addition, the $\{\ell,\ell'\}$ secure codes based on the generalized RSK-MSR codes can be obtained by applying the construction method of $\{\ell,\ell'\}$ secure codes proposed by Shah, Rashmi and Kumar. Furthermore, the message matrix of the $(n,k,d)$ generalized RSK-MSR code is derived from that of the RSK-MSR code by using the construction method of the $\{\ell=k,\ell'=0\}$ secure code.
1309.6707
Distributed Online Learning in Social Recommender Systems
cs.SI cs.LG stat.ML
In this paper, we consider decentralized sequential decision making in distributed online recommender systems, where items are recommended to users based on their search query as well as their specific background including history of bought items, gender and age, all of which comprise the context information of the user. In contrast to centralized recommender systems, in which there is a single centralized seller who has access to the complete inventory of items as well as the complete record of sales and user information, in decentralized recommender systems each seller/learner only has access to the inventory of items and user information for its own products and not the products and user information of other sellers, but can get commission if it sells an item of another seller. Therefore the sellers must distributedly find out for an incoming user which items to recommend (from the set of own items or items of another seller), in order to maximize the revenue from own sales and commissions. We formulate this problem as a cooperative contextual bandit problem, analytically bound the performance of the sellers compared to the best recommendation strategy given the complete realization of user arrivals and the inventory of items, as well as the context-dependent purchase probabilities of each item, and verify our results via numerical examples on a distributed data set adapted based on Amazon data. We evaluate the dependence of the performance of a seller on the inventory of items the seller has, the number of connections it has with the other sellers, and the commissions which the seller gets by selling items of other sellers to its users.
1309.6722
Domain-Specific Sentiment Word Extraction by Seed Expansion and Pattern Generation
cs.CL
This paper focuses on the automatic extraction of domain-specific sentiment word (DSSW), which is a fundamental subtask of sentiment analysis. Most previous work utilizes manual patterns for this task. However, the performance of those methods highly relies on the labelled patterns or selected seeds. In order to overcome the above problem, this paper presents an automatic framework to detect large-scale domain-specific patterns for DSSW extraction. To this end, sentiment seeds are extracted from massive dataset of user comments. Subsequently, these sentiment seeds are expanded by synonyms using a bootstrapping mechanism. Simultaneously, a synonymy graph is built and the graph propagation algorithm is applied on the built synonymy graph. Afterwards, syntactic and sequential relations between target words and high-ranked sentiment words are extracted automatically to construct large-scale patterns, which are further used to extracte DSSWs. The experimental results in three domains reveal the effectiveness of our method.
1309.6727
Genie Tree and Degrees of Freedom of the Symmetric MIMO Interfering Broadcast Channel
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study the information theoretic maximal degrees of freedom (DoF) for the symmetric multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) interfering broadcast channel (IBC) with arbitrary antenna configurations. For the G-cell K-user MXN MIMO-IBC network, we find that the information theoretic maximal DoF per user are related to three DoF bounds: 1) the decomposition DoF bound d^{Decom}=MN/(M+KN), a lower-bound of linear interference alignment (IA) with infinite time/frequency extensions (called asymptotic IA); 2) the proper DoF bound d^{Proper}=(M+N)/(GK+1), an upper-bound of linear IA without time/frequency extensions (called linear IA); and 3) the quantity DoF bound d^{Quan}, a zigzag piecewise linear function of M and N. The whole region of M/N can be divided into two regions, Region I and Region II. Specifically, for most configurations in Region I, the information theoretic maximal DoF are the decomposition DoF bound and can be achieved by the asymptotic IA. For all configurations in Region II, the information theoretic maximal DoF are the quantity DoF bound and can be achieved by the linear IA. To obtain the tight upper-bound, we propose a unified way to construct genies, where the genies help each base station or user resolve the maximal number of interference. According to the feature that the designed genies with the same dimension can derive identical DoF upper-bound, we convert the information theoretic DoF upper-bound problem into a linear algebra problem and obtain the closed-form DoF upper-bound expression. Moreover, we develop a non-iterative linear IA transceiver to achieve the DoF upper-bound for the networks with antenna configurations in Region II, which means that the derived DoF upper-bound is tightest. The basic principles to derive the DoF upper-bound and design the linear IA transceiver to achieve the DoF upper-bound can be extended into general asymmetric networks.
1309.6732
Outage Capacity of Opportunistic Beamforming with Random User Locations
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the outage capacity of a network consisting of a multitude of heterogenous mobile users, and operating according to the classical opportunistic beamforming framework. The base station is located at the center of the cell, which is modeled as a disk of finite radius. The random user locations are modeled using a homogenous spatial Poisson point process. The received signals are impaired by both fading and location dependent path loss. For this system, we first derive an expression for the beam outage probability. This expression holds for all path loss models that satisfy some mild conditions. Then, we focus on two specific path loss models (i.e., an unbounded model and a more realistic bounded one) to illustrate the applications of our results. In the large system limit where the cell radius tends to infinity, the beam outage capacity and its scaling behavior are derived for the selected specific path loss models. It is shown that the beam outage capacity scales logarithmically for the unbounded model. On the other hand, this scaling behavior becomes double logarithmic for the bounded model. Intuitive explanations are provided as to why we observe different scaling behavior for different path loss models. Numerical evaluations are performed to give further insights, and to illustrate the applicability of the outage capacity results even to a cell having a small finite radius.
1309.6740
Detection of the elite structure in a virtual multiplex social system by means of a generalized $K$-core
physics.soc-ph cs.SI physics.data-an
Elites are subgroups of individuals within a society that have the ability and means to influence, lead, govern, and shape societies. Members of elites are often well connected individuals, which enables them to impose their influence to many and to quickly gather, process, and spread information. Here we argue that elites are not only composed of highly connected individuals, but also of intermediaries connecting hubs to form a cohesive and structured elite-subgroup at the core of a social network. For this purpose we present a generalization of the $K$-core algorithm that allows to identify a social core that is composed of well-connected hubs together with their `connectors'. We show the validity of the idea in the framework of a virtual world defined by a massive multiplayer online game, on which we have complete information of various social networks. Exploiting this multiplex structure, we find that the hubs of the generalized $K$-core identify those individuals that are high social performers in terms of a series of indicators that are available in the game. In addition, using a combined strategy which involves the generalized $K$-core and the recently introduced $M$-core, the elites of the different 'nations' present in the game are perfectly identified as modules of the generalized $K$-core. Interesting sudden shifts in the composition of the elite cores are observed at deep levels. We show that elite detection with the traditional $K$-core is not possible in a reliable way. The proposed method might be useful in a series of more general applications, such as community detection.
1309.6786
One-class Collaborative Filtering with Random Graphs: Annotated Version
stat.ML cs.LG
The bane of one-class collaborative filtering is interpreting and modelling the latent signal from the missing class. In this paper we present a novel Bayesian generative model for implicit collaborative filtering. It forms a core component of the Xbox Live architecture, and unlike previous approaches, delineates the odds of a user disliking an item from simply not considering it. The latent signal is treated as an unobserved random graph connecting users with items they might have encountered. We demonstrate how large-scale distributed learning can be achieved through a combination of stochastic gradient descent and mean field variational inference over random graph samples. A fine-grained comparison is done against a state of the art baseline on real world data.
1309.6788
Successive Interference Cancellation in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
At present, operators address the explosive growth of mobile data demand by densification of the cellular network so as to reduce the transmitter-receiver distance and to achieve higher spectral efficiency. Due to such network densification and the intense proliferation of wireless devices, modern wireless networks are interference-limited, which motivates the use of interference mitigation and coordination techniques. In this work, we develop a statistical framework to evaluate the performance of multi-tier heterogeneous networks with successive interference cancellation (SIC) capabilities, accounting for the computational complexity of the cancellation scheme and relevant network related parameters such as random location of the access points (APs) and mobile users, and the characteristics of the wireless propagation channel. We explicitly model the consecutive events of canceling interferers and we derive the success probability to cancel the n-th strongest signal and to decode the signal of interest after n cancellations. When users are connected to the AP which provides the maximum average received signal power, the analysis indicates that the performance gains of SIC diminish quickly with n and the benefits are modest for realistic values of the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). We extend the statistical model to include several association policies where distinct gains of SIC are expected: (i) minimum load association, (ii) maxi- mum instantaneous SIR association, and (iii) range expansion. Numerical results show the effectiveness of SIC for the considered association policies. This work deepens the understanding of SIC by defining the achievable gains for different association policies in multi-tier heterogeneous networks.
1309.6806
Blind pilot decontamination
cs.IT math.IT
A subspace projection to improve channel estimation in massive multi-antenna systems is proposed and analyzed. Together with power-controlled hand-off, it can mitigate the pilot contamination problem without the need for coordination among cells. The proposed method is blind in the sense that it does not require pilot data to find the appropriate subspace. It is based on the theory of large random matrices that predicts that the eigenvalue spectra of large sample covariance matrices can asymptotically decompose into disjoint bulks as the matrix size grows large. Random matrix and free probability theory are utilized to predict under which system parameters such a bulk decomposition takes place. Simulation results are provided to confirm that the proposed method outperforms conventional linear channel estimation if bulk separation occurs.
1309.6811
Generative Multiple-Instance Learning Models For Quantitative Electromyography
cs.LG stat.ML
We present a comprehensive study of the use of generative modeling approaches for Multiple-Instance Learning (MIL) problems. In MIL a learner receives training instances grouped together into bags with labels for the bags only (which might not be correct for the comprised instances). Our work was motivated by the task of facilitating the diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders using sets of motor unit potential trains (MUPTs) detected within a muscle which can be cast as a MIL problem. Our approach leads to a state-of-the-art solution to the problem of muscle classification. By introducing and analyzing generative models for MIL in a general framework and examining a variety of model structures and components, our work also serves as a methodological guide to modelling MIL tasks. We evaluate our proposed methods both on MUPT datasets and on the MUSK1 dataset, one of the most widely used benchmarks for MIL.
1309.6812
The Bregman Variational Dual-Tree Framework
cs.LG stat.ML
Graph-based methods provide a powerful tool set for many non-parametric frameworks in Machine Learning. In general, the memory and computational complexity of these methods is quadratic in the number of examples in the data which makes them quickly infeasible for moderate to large scale datasets. A significant effort to find more efficient solutions to the problem has been made in the literature. One of the state-of-the-art methods that has been recently introduced is the Variational Dual-Tree (VDT) framework. Despite some of its unique features, VDT is currently restricted only to Euclidean spaces where the Euclidean distance quantifies the similarity. In this paper, we extend the VDT framework beyond the Euclidean distance to more general Bregman divergences that include the Euclidean distance as a special case. By exploiting the properties of the general Bregman divergence, we show how the new framework can maintain all the pivotal features of the VDT framework and yet significantly improve its performance in non-Euclidean domains. We apply the proposed framework to different text categorization problems and demonstrate its benefits over the original VDT.
1309.6813
Hinge-loss Markov Random Fields: Convex Inference for Structured Prediction
cs.LG stat.ML
Graphical models for structured domains are powerful tools, but the computational complexities of combinatorial prediction spaces can force restrictions on models, or require approximate inference in order to be tractable. Instead of working in a combinatorial space, we use hinge-loss Markov random fields (HL-MRFs), an expressive class of graphical models with log-concave density functions over continuous variables, which can represent confidences in discrete predictions. This paper demonstrates that HL-MRFs are general tools for fast and accurate structured prediction. We introduce the first inference algorithm that is both scalable and applicable to the full class of HL-MRFs, and show how to train HL-MRFs with several learning algorithms. Our experiments show that HL-MRFs match or surpass the predictive performance of state-of-the-art methods, including discrete models, in four application domains.
1309.6814
High-dimensional Joint Sparsity Random Effects Model for Multi-task Learning
cs.LG stat.ML
Joint sparsity regularization in multi-task learning has attracted much attention in recent years. The traditional convex formulation employs the group Lasso relaxation to achieve joint sparsity across tasks. Although this approach leads to a simple convex formulation, it suffers from several issues due to the looseness of the relaxation. To remedy this problem, we view jointly sparse multi-task learning as a specialized random effects model, and derive a convex relaxation approach that involves two steps. The first step learns the covariance matrix of the coefficients using a convex formulation which we refer to as sparse covariance coding; the second step solves a ridge regression problem with a sparse quadratic regularizer based on the covariance matrix obtained in the first step. It is shown that this approach produces an asymptotically optimal quadratic regularizer in the multitask learning setting when the number of tasks approaches infinity. Experimental results demonstrate that the convex formulation obtained via the proposed model significantly outperforms group Lasso (and related multi-stage formulations
1309.6815
Lower Bounds for Exact Model Counting and Applications in Probabilistic Databases
cs.DB cs.AI cs.CC
The best current methods for exactly computing the number of satisfying assignments, or the satisfying probability, of Boolean formulas can be seen, either directly or indirectly, as building 'decision-DNNF' (decision decomposable negation normal form) representations of the input Boolean formulas. Decision-DNNFs are a special case of 'd-DNNF's where 'd' stands for 'deterministic'. We show that any decision-DNNF can be converted into an equivalent 'FBDD' (free binary decision diagram) -- also known as a 'read-once branching program' (ROBP or 1-BP) -- with only a quasipolynomial increase in representation size in general, and with only a polynomial increase in size in the special case of monotone k-DNF formulas. Leveraging known exponential lower bounds for FBDDs, we then obtain similar exponential lower bounds for decision-DNNFs which provide lower bounds for the recent algorithms. We also separate the power of decision-DNNFs from d-DNNFs and a generalization of decision-DNNFs known as AND-FBDDs. Finally we show how these imply exponential lower bounds for natural problems associated with probabilistic databases.
1309.6816
Reasoning about Probabilities in Dynamic Systems using Goal Regression
cs.AI
Reasoning about degrees of belief in uncertain dynamic worlds is fundamental to many applications, such as robotics and planning, where actions modify state properties and sensors provide measurements, both of which are prone to noise. With the exception of limited cases such as Gaussian processes over linear phenomena, belief state evolution can be complex and hard to reason with in a general way. This paper proposes a framework with new results that allows the reduction of subjective probabilities after sensing and acting to questions about the initial state only. We build on an expressive probabilistic first-order logical account by Bacchus, Halpern and Levesque, resulting in a methodology that, in principle, can be coupled with a variety of existing inference solutions.
1309.6817
Probabilistic Conditional Preference Networks
cs.AI
In order to represent the preferences of a group of individuals, we introduce Probabilistic CP-nets (PCP-nets). PCP-nets provide a compact language for representing probability distributions over preference orderings. We argue that they are useful for aggregating preferences or modelling noisy preferences. Then we give efficient algorithms for the main reasoning problems, namely for computing the probability that a given outcome is preferred to another one, and the probability that a given outcome is optimal. As a by-product, we obtain an unexpected linear-time algorithm for checking dominance in a standard, tree-structured CP-net.
1309.6818
Boosting in the presence of label noise
cs.LG stat.ML
Boosting is known to be sensitive to label noise. We studied two approaches to improve AdaBoost's robustness against labelling errors. One is to employ a label-noise robust classifier as a base learner, while the other is to modify the AdaBoost algorithm to be more robust. Empirical evaluation shows that a committee of robust classifiers, although converges faster than non label-noise aware AdaBoost, is still susceptible to label noise. However, pairing it with the new robust Boosting algorithm we propose here results in a more resilient algorithm under mislabelling.
1309.6819
Hilbert Space Embeddings of Predictive State Representations
cs.LG stat.ML
Predictive State Representations (PSRs) are an expressive class of models for controlled stochastic processes. PSRs represent state as a set of predictions of future observable events. Because PSRs are defined entirely in terms of observable data, statistically consistent estimates of PSR parameters can be learned efficiently by manipulating moments of observed training data. Most learning algorithms for PSRs have assumed that actions and observations are finite with low cardinality. In this paper, we generalize PSRs to infinite sets of observations and actions, using the recent concept of Hilbert space embeddings of distributions. The essence is to represent the state as a nonparametric conditional embedding operator in a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS) and leverage recent work in kernel methods to estimate, predict, and update the representation. We show that these Hilbert space embeddings of PSRs are able to gracefully handle continuous actions and observations, and that our learned models outperform competing system identification algorithms on several prediction benchmarks.
1309.6820
SparsityBoost: A New Scoring Function for Learning Bayesian Network Structure
cs.LG cs.AI stat.ML
We give a new consistent scoring function for structure learning of Bayesian networks. In contrast to traditional approaches to scorebased structure learning, such as BDeu or MDL, the complexity penalty that we propose is data-dependent and is given by the probability that a conditional independence test correctly shows that an edge cannot exist. What really distinguishes this new scoring function from earlier work is that it has the property of becoming computationally easier to maximize as the amount of data increases. We prove a polynomial sample complexity result, showing that maximizing this score is guaranteed to correctly learn a structure with no false edges and a distribution close to the generating distribution, whenever there exists a Bayesian network which is a perfect map for the data generating distribution. Although the new score can be used with any search algorithm, we give empirical results showing that it is particularly effective when used together with a linear programming relaxation approach to Bayesian network structure learning.
1309.6821
Sample Complexity of Multi-task Reinforcement Learning
cs.LG stat.ML
Transferring knowledge across a sequence of reinforcement-learning tasks is challenging, and has a number of important applications. Though there is encouraging empirical evidence that transfer can improve performance in subsequent reinforcement-learning tasks, there has been very little theoretical analysis. In this paper, we introduce a new multi-task algorithm for a sequence of reinforcement-learning tasks when each task is sampled independently from (an unknown) distribution over a finite set of Markov decision processes whose parameters are initially unknown. For this setting, we prove under certain assumptions that the per-task sample complexity of exploration is reduced significantly due to transfer compared to standard single-task algorithms. Our multi-task algorithm also has the desired characteristic that it is guaranteed not to exhibit negative transfer: in the worst case its per-task sample complexity is comparable to the corresponding single-task algorithm.
1309.6822
Automorphism Groups of Graphical Models and Lifted Variational Inference
cs.AI
Using the theory of group action, we first introduce the concept of the automorphism group of an exponential family or a graphical model, thus formalizing the general notion of symmetry of a probabilistic model. This automorphism group provides a precise mathematical framework for lifted inference in the general exponential family. Its group action partitions the set of random variables and feature functions into equivalent classes (called orbits) having identical marginals and expectations. Then the inference problem is effectively reduced to that of computing marginals or expectations for each class, thus avoiding the need to deal with each individual variable or feature. We demonstrate the usefulness of this general framework in lifting two classes of variational approximation for maximum a posteriori (MAP) inference: local linear programming (LP) relaxation and local LP relaxation with cycle constraints; the latter yields the first lifted variational inference algorithm that operates on a bound tighter than the local constraints.
1309.6823
Convex Relaxations of Bregman Divergence Clustering
cs.LG stat.ML
Although many convex relaxations of clustering have been proposed in the past decade, current formulations remain restricted to spherical Gaussian or discriminative models and are susceptible to imbalanced clusters. To address these shortcomings, we propose a new class of convex relaxations that can be flexibly applied to more general forms of Bregman divergence clustering. By basing these new formulations on normalized equivalence relations we retain additional control on relaxation quality, which allows improvement in clustering quality. We furthermore develop optimization methods that improve scalability by exploiting recent implicit matrix norm methods. In practice, we find that the new formulations are able to efficiently produce tighter clusterings that improve the accuracy of state of the art methods.
1309.6824
Learning Sparse Causal Models is not NP-hard
cs.AI
This paper shows that causal model discovery is not an NP-hard problem, in the sense that for sparse graphs bounded by node degree k the sound and complete causal model can be obtained in worst case order N^{2(k+2)} independence tests, even when latent variables and selection bias may be present. We present a modification of the well-known FCI algorithm that implements the method for an independence oracle, and suggest improvements for sample/real-world data versions. It does not contradict any known hardness results, and does not solve an NP-hard problem: it just proves that sparse causal discovery is perhaps more complicated, but not as hard as learning minimal Bayesian networks.
1309.6825
Advances in Bayesian Network Learning using Integer Programming
cs.AI
We consider the problem of learning Bayesian networks (BNs) from complete discrete data. This problem of discrete optimisation is formulated as an integer program (IP). We describe the various steps we have taken to allow efficient solving of this IP. These are (i) efficient search for cutting planes, (ii) a fast greedy algorithm to find high-scoring (perhaps not optimal) BNs and (iii) tightening the linear relaxation of the IP. After relating this BN learning problem to set covering and the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem, we present our empirical results. These show improvements, sometimes dramatic, over earlier results.
1309.6826
Qualitative Possibilistic Mixed-Observable MDPs
cs.AI
Possibilistic and qualitative POMDPs (pi-POMDPs) are counterparts of POMDPs used to model situations where the agent's initial belief or observation probabilities are imprecise due to lack of past experiences or insufficient data collection. However, like probabilistic POMDPs, optimally solving pi-POMDPs is intractable: the finite belief state space exponentially grows with the number of system's states. In this paper, a possibilistic version of Mixed-Observable MDPs is presented to get around this issue: the complexity of solving pi-POMDPs, some state variables of which are fully observable, can be then dramatically reduced. A value iteration algorithm for this new formulation under infinite horizon is next proposed and the optimality of the returned policy (for a specified criterion) is shown assuming the existence of a "stay" action in some goal states. Experimental work finally shows that this possibilistic model outperforms probabilistic POMDPs commonly used in robotics, for a target recognition problem where the agent's observations are imprecise.
1309.6827
Optimization With Parity Constraints: From Binary Codes to Discrete Integration
cs.AI
Many probabilistic inference tasks involve summations over exponentially large sets. Recently, it has been shown that these problems can be reduced to solving a polynomial number of MAP inference queries for a model augmented with randomly generated parity constraints. By exploiting a connection with max-likelihood decoding of binary codes, we show that these optimizations are computationally hard. Inspired by iterative message passing decoding algorithms, we propose an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation for the problem, enhanced with new sparsification techniques to improve decoding performance. By solving the ILP through a sequence of LP relaxations, we get both lower and upper bounds on the partition function, which hold with high probability and are much tighter than those obtained with variational methods.
1309.6828
Monte-Carlo Planning: Theoretically Fast Convergence Meets Practical Efficiency
cs.AI
Popular Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) algorithms for online planning, such as epsilon-greedy tree search and UCT, aim at rapidly identifying a reasonably good action, but provide rather poor worst-case guarantees on performance improvement over time. In contrast, a recently introduced MCTS algorithm BRUE guarantees exponential-rate improvement over time, yet it is not geared towards identifying reasonably good choices right at the go. We take a stand on the individual strengths of these two classes of algorithms, and show how they can be effectively connected. We then rationalize a principle of "selective tree expansion", and suggest a concrete implementation of this principle within MCTS. The resulting algorithm,s favorably compete with other MCTS algorithms under short planning times, while preserving the attractive convergence properties of BRUE.
1309.6829
Bethe-ADMM for Tree Decomposition based Parallel MAP Inference
cs.AI cs.LG stat.ML
We consider the problem of maximum a posteriori (MAP) inference in discrete graphical models. We present a parallel MAP inference algorithm called Bethe-ADMM based on two ideas: tree-decomposition of the graph and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). However, unlike the standard ADMM, we use an inexact ADMM augmented with a Bethe-divergence based proximal function, which makes each subproblem in ADMM easy to solve in parallel using the sum-product algorithm. We rigorously prove global convergence of Bethe-ADMM. The proposed algorithm is extensively evaluated on both synthetic and real datasets to illustrate its effectiveness. Further, the parallel Bethe-ADMM is shown to scale almost linearly with increasing number of cores.
1309.6830
Building Bridges: Viewing Active Learning from the Multi-Armed Bandit Lens
cs.LG stat.ML
In this paper we propose a multi-armed bandit inspired, pool based active learning algorithm for the problem of binary classification. By carefully constructing an analogy between active learning and multi-armed bandits, we utilize ideas such as lower confidence bounds, and self-concordant regularization from the multi-armed bandit literature to design our proposed algorithm. Our algorithm is a sequential algorithm, which in each round assigns a sampling distribution on the pool, samples one point from this distribution, and queries the oracle for the label of this sampled point. The design of this sampling distribution is also inspired by the analogy between active learning and multi-armed bandits. We show how to derive lower confidence bounds required by our algorithm. Experimental comparisons to previously proposed active learning algorithms show superior performance on some standard UCI datasets.
1309.6831
Batch-iFDD for Representation Expansion in Large MDPs
cs.LG stat.ML
Matching pursuit (MP) methods are a promising class of feature construction algorithms for value function approximation. Yet existing MP methods require creating a pool of potential features, mandating expert knowledge or enumeration of a large feature pool, both of which hinder scalability. This paper introduces batch incremental feature dependency discovery (Batch-iFDD) as an MP method that inherits a provable convergence property. Additionally, Batch-iFDD does not require a large pool of features, leading to lower computational complexity. Empirical policy evaluation results across three domains with up to one million states highlight the scalability of Batch-iFDD over the previous state of the art MP algorithm.
1309.6832
Structured Message Passing
cs.AI
In this paper, we present structured message passing (SMP), a unifying framework for approximate inference algorithms that take advantage of structured representations such as algebraic decision diagrams and sparse hash tables. These representations can yield significant time and space savings over the conventional tabular representation when the message has several identical values (context-specific independence) or zeros (determinism) or both in its range. Therefore, in order to fully exploit the power of structured representations, we propose to artificially introduce context-specific independence and determinism in the messages. This yields a new class of powerful approximate inference algorithms which includes popular algorithms such as cluster-graph Belief propagation (BP), expectation propagation and particle BP as special cases. We show that our new algorithms introduce several interesting bias-variance trade-offs. We evaluate these trade-offs empirically and demonstrate that our new algorithms are more accurate and scalable than state-of-the-art techniques.
1309.6833
Multiple Instance Learning by Discriminative Training of Markov Networks
cs.LG stat.ML
We introduce a graphical framework for multiple instance learning (MIL) based on Markov networks. This framework can be used to model the traditional MIL definition as well as more general MIL definitions. Different levels of ambiguity -- the portion of positive instances in a bag -- can be explored in weakly supervised data. To train these models, we propose a discriminative max-margin learning algorithm leveraging efficient inference for cardinality-based cliques. The efficacy of the proposed framework is evaluated on a variety of data sets. Experimental results verify that encoding or learning the degree of ambiguity can improve classification performance.
1309.6834
Unsupervised Learning of Noisy-Or Bayesian Networks
cs.LG stat.ML
This paper considers the problem of learning the parameters in Bayesian networks of discrete variables with known structure and hidden variables. Previous approaches in these settings typically use expectation maximization; when the network has high treewidth, the required expectations might be approximated using Monte Carlo or variational methods. We show how to avoid inference altogether during learning by giving a polynomial-time algorithm based on the method-of-moments, building upon recent work on learning discrete-valued mixture models. In particular, we show how to learn the parameters for a family of bipartite noisy-or Bayesian networks. In our experimental results, we demonstrate an application of our algorithm to learning QMR-DT, a large Bayesian network used for medical diagnosis. We show that it is possible to fully learn the parameters of QMR-DT even when only the findings are observed in the training data (ground truth diseases unknown).
1309.6835
Gaussian Processes for Big Data
cs.LG stat.ML
We introduce stochastic variational inference for Gaussian process models. This enables the application of Gaussian process (GP) models to data sets containing millions of data points. We show how GPs can be vari- ationally decomposed to depend on a set of globally relevant inducing variables which factorize the model in the necessary manner to perform variational inference. Our ap- proach is readily extended to models with non-Gaussian likelihoods and latent variable models based around Gaussian processes. We demonstrate the approach on a simple toy problem and two real world data sets.
1309.6836
Discovering Cyclic Causal Models with Latent Variables: A General SAT-Based Procedure
cs.AI
We present a very general approach to learning the structure of causal models based on d-separation constraints, obtained from any given set of overlapping passive observational or experimental data sets. The procedure allows for both directed cycles (feedback loops) and the presence of latent variables. Our approach is based on a logical representation of causal pathways, which permits the integration of quite general background knowledge, and inference is performed using a Boolean satisfiability (SAT) solver. The procedure is complete in that it exhausts the available information on whether any given edge can be determined to be present or absent, and returns "unknown" otherwise. Many existing constraint-based causal discovery algorithms can be seen as special cases, tailored to circumstances in which one or more restricting assumptions apply. Simulations illustrate the effect of these assumptions on discovery and how the present algorithm scales.