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1310.6945
Optimal Scalar Quantization for Parameter Estimation
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study an asymptotic approximation of the Fisher information for the estimation of a scalar parameter using quantized measurements. We show that, as the number of quantization intervals tends to infinity, the loss of Fisher information induced by quantization decreases exponentially as a function of the number of quantization bits. A characterization of the optimal quantizer through its interval density and an analytical expression for the Fisher information are obtained. A comparison between optimal uniform and non-uniform quantization for the location and scale estimation problems shows that non-uniform quantization is only slightly better. As the optimal quantization intervals are shown to depend on the unknown parameters, by applying adaptive algorithms that jointly estimate the parameter and set the thresholds in the location and scale estimation problems, we show that the asymptotic results can be approximately obtained in practice using only 4 or 5 quantization bits.
1310.6998
Predicting the NFL using Twitter
cs.SI cs.LG physics.soc-ph stat.ML
We study the relationship between social media output and National Football League (NFL) games, using a dataset containing messages from Twitter and NFL game statistics. Specifically, we consider tweets pertaining to specific teams and games in the NFL season and use them alongside statistical game data to build predictive models for future game outcomes (which team will win?) and sports betting outcomes (which team will win with the point spread? will the total points be over/under the line?). We experiment with several feature sets and find that simple features using large volumes of tweets can match or exceed the performance of more traditional features that use game statistics.
1310.7001
Scalable Synchronization and Reciprocity Calibration for Distributed Multiuser MIMO
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
Large-scale distributed Multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) is a promising wireless network architecture that combines the advantages of "massive MIMO" and "small cells." It consists of several Access Points (APs) connected to a central server via a wired backhaul network and acting as a large distributed antenna system. We focus on the downlink, which is both more demanding in terms of traffic and more challenging in terms of implementation than the uplink. In order to enable multiuser joint precoding of the downlink signals, channel state information at the transmitter side is required. We consider Time Division Duplex (TDD), where the {\em downlink} channels can be learned from the user uplink pilot signals, thanks to channel reciprocity. Furthermore, coherent multiuser joint precoding is possible only if the APs maintain a sufficiently accurate relative timing and phase synchronization. AP synchronization and TDD reciprocity calibration are two key problems to be solved in order to enable distributed MU-MIMO downlink. In this paper, we propose novel over-the-air synchronization and calibration protocols that scale well with the network size. The proposed schemes can be applied to networks formed by a large number of APs, each of which is driven by an inexpensive 802.11-grade clock and has a standard RF front-end, not explicitly designed to be reciprocal. Our protocols can incorporate, as a building block, any suitable timing and frequency estimator. Here we revisit the problem of joint ML timing and frequency estimation and use the corresponding Cramer-Rao bound to evaluate the performance of the synchronization protocol. Overall, the proposed synchronization and calibration schemes are shown to achieve sufficient accuracy for satisfactory distributed MU-MIMO performance.
1310.7028
Multiplicativity of completely bounded $p$-norms implies a strong converse for entanglement-assisted capacity
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
The fully quantum reverse Shannon theorem establishes the optimal rate of noiseless classical communication required for simulating the action of many instances of a noisy quantum channel on an arbitrary input state, while also allowing for an arbitrary amount of shared entanglement of an arbitrary form. Turning this theorem around establishes a strong converse for the entanglement-assisted classical capacity of any quantum channel. This paper proves the strong converse for entanglement-assisted capacity by a completely different approach and identifies a bound on the strong converse exponent for this task. Namely, we exploit the recent entanglement-assisted "meta-converse" theorem of Matthews and Wehner, several properties of the recently established sandwiched Renyi relative entropy (also referred to as the quantum Renyi divergence), and the multiplicativity of completely bounded $p$-norms due to Devetak et al. The proof here demonstrates the extent to which the Arimoto approach can be helpful in proving strong converse theorems, it provides an operational relevance for the multiplicativity result of Devetak et al., and it adds to the growing body of evidence that the sandwiched Renyi relative entropy is the correct quantum generalization of the classical concept for all $\alpha>1$.
1310.7048
Scaling SVM and Least Absolute Deviations via Exact Data Reduction
cs.LG stat.ML
The support vector machine (SVM) is a widely used method for classification. Although many efforts have been devoted to develop efficient solvers, it remains challenging to apply SVM to large-scale problems. A nice property of SVM is that the non-support vectors have no effect on the resulting classifier. Motivated by this observation, we present fast and efficient screening rules to discard non-support vectors by analyzing the dual problem of SVM via variational inequalities (DVI). As a result, the number of data instances to be entered into the optimization can be substantially reduced. Some appealing features of our screening method are: (1) DVI is safe in the sense that the vectors discarded by DVI are guaranteed to be non-support vectors; (2) the data set needs to be scanned only once to run the screening, whose computational cost is negligible compared to that of solving the SVM problem; (3) DVI is independent of the solvers and can be integrated with any existing efficient solvers. We also show that the DVI technique can be extended to detect non-support vectors in the least absolute deviations regression (LAD). To the best of our knowledge, there are currently no screening methods for LAD. We have evaluated DVI on both synthetic and real data sets. Experiments indicate that DVI significantly outperforms the existing state-of-the-art screening rules for SVM, and is very effective in discarding non-support vectors for LAD. The speedup gained by DVI rules can be up to two orders of magnitude.
1310.7062
Real-Time Planning with Primitives for Dynamic Walking over Uneven Terrain
cs.SY cs.RO
We present an algorithm for receding-horizon motion planning using a finite family of motion primitives for underactuated dynamic walking over uneven terrain. The motion primitives are defined as virtual holonomic constraints, and the special structure of underactuated mechanical systems operating subject to virtual constraints is used to construct closed-form solutions and a special binary search tree that dramatically speed up motion planning. We propose a greedy depth-first search and discuss improvement using energy-based heuristics. The resulting algorithm can plan several footsteps ahead in a fraction of a second for both the compass-gait walker and a planar 7-Degree-of-freedom/five-link walker.
1310.7112
Computation Over Gaussian Networks With Orthogonal Components
cs.IT math.IT
Function computation of arbitrarily correlated discrete sources over Gaussian networks with orthogonal components is studied. Two classes of functions are considered: the arithmetic sum function and the type function. The arithmetic sum function in this paper is defined as a set of multiple weighted arithmetic sums, which includes averaging of the sources and estimating each of the sources as special cases. The type or frequency histogram function counts the number of occurrences of each argument, which yields many important statistics such as mean, variance, maximum, minimum, median, and so on. The proposed computation coding first abstracts Gaussian networks into the corresponding modulo sum multiple-access channels via nested lattice codes and linear network coding and then computes the desired function by using linear Slepian-Wolf source coding. For orthogonal Gaussian networks (with no broadcast and multiple-access components), the computation capacity is characterized for a class of networks. For Gaussian networks with multiple-access components (but no broadcast), an approximate computation capacity is characterized for a class of networks.
1310.7114
Efficient Information Theoretic Clustering on Discrete Lattices
cs.CV
We consider the problem of clustering data that reside on discrete, low dimensional lattices. Canonical examples for this setting are found in image segmentation and key point extraction. Our solution is based on a recent approach to information theoretic clustering where clusters result from an iterative procedure that minimizes a divergence measure. We replace costly processing steps in the original algorithm by means of convolutions. These allow for highly efficient implementations and thus significantly reduce runtime. This paper therefore bridges a gap between machine learning and signal processing.
1310.7115
Studying a Chaotic Spiking Neural Model
cs.AI cs.NE
Dynamics of a chaotic spiking neuron model are being studied mathematically and experimentally. The Nonlinear Dynamic State neuron (NDS) is analysed to further understand the model and improve it. Chaos has many interesting properties such as sensitivity to initial conditions, space filling, control and synchronization. As suggested by biologists, these properties may be exploited and play vital role in carrying out computational tasks in human brain. The NDS model has some limitations; in thus paper the model is investigated to overcome some of these limitations in order to enhance the model. Therefore, the models parameters are tuned and the resulted dynamics are studied. Also, the discretization method of the model is considered. Moreover, a mathematical analysis is carried out to reveal the underlying dynamics of the model after tuning of its parameters. The results of the aforementioned methods revealed some facts regarding the NDS attractor and suggest the stabilization of a large number of unstable periodic orbits (UPOs) which might correspond to memories in phase space.
1310.7123
Nomographic Functions: Efficient Computation in Clustered Gaussian Sensor Networks
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, a clustered wireless sensor network is considered that is modeled as a set of coupled Gaussian multiple-access channels. The objective of the network is not to reconstruct individual sensor readings at designated fusion centers but rather to reliably compute some functions thereof. Our particular attention is on real-valued functions that can be represented as a post-processed sum of pre-processed sensor readings. Such functions are called nomographic functions and their special structure permits the utilization of the interference property of the Gaussian multiple-access channel to reliably compute many linear and nonlinear functions at significantly higher rates than those achievable with standard schemes that combat interference. Motivated by this observation, a computation scheme is proposed that combines a suitable data pre- and post-processing strategy with a nested lattice code designed to protect the sum of pre-processed sensor readings against the channel noise. After analyzing its computation rate performance, it is shown that at the cost of a reduced rate, the scheme can be extended to compute every continuous function of the sensor readings in a finite succession of steps, where in each step a different nomographic function is computed. This demonstrates the fundamental role of nomographic representations.
1310.7134
Modeling Oligarchs' Campaign Donations and Ideological Preferences with Simulated Agent-Based Spatial Elections
cs.MA physics.soc-ph
In this paper, we investigate the interactions among oligarchs, political parties, and voters using an agent-based modeling approach. We introduce the OLIGO model, which is based on the spatial model of democracy, where voters have positions in a policy space and vote for the party that appears closest to them, and parties move in policy space to seek more votes. We extend the existing literature on agent-based models of political economy in the following manner: (1) by introducing a new class of agents- oligarchs - that represent leaders of firms in a common industry who lobby for beneficial subsidies through campaign donations; and (2) by investigating the effects of ideological preferences of the oligarchs on legislative action. We test hypotheses from the literature in political economics on the behavior of oligarchs and political parties as they interact, under conditions of imperfect information and bounded rationality. Our key results indicate that (1) oligarchs tend to donate less to political campaigns when the parties are more resistant to changing their policies, or when voters are more informed; and (2) if Oligarchs donate to parties based on a combination of ideological and profit motivations, Oligarchs will tend to donate at a lower equilibrium level, due to the influence of lost profits. We validate these outcomes via comparisons to real world polling data on changes in party support over time.
1310.7158
Outage Constrained Robust Secure Transmission for MISO Wiretap Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we consider the robust secure beamformer design for MISO wiretap channels. Assume that the eavesdroppers' channels are only partially available at the transmitter, we seek to maximize the secrecy rate under the transmit power and secrecy rate outage probability constraint. The outage probability constraint requires that the secrecy rate exceeds certain threshold with high probability. Therefore including such constraint in the design naturally ensures the desired robustness. Unfortunately, the presence of the probabilistic constraints makes the problem non-convex and hence difficult to solve. In this paper, we investigate the outage probability constrained secrecy rate maximization problem using a novel two-step approach. Under a wide range of uncertainty models, our developed algorithms can obtain high-quality solutions, sometimes even exact global solutions, for the robust secure beamformer design problem. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithms.
1310.7159
Using concatenated algebraic geometry codes in channel polarization
cs.IT math.AG math.IT
Polar codes were introduced by Arikan in 2008 and are the first family of error-correcting codes achieving the symmetric capacity of an arbitrary binary-input discrete memoryless channel under low complexity encoding and using an efficient successive cancellation decoding strategy. Recently, non-binary polar codes have been studied, in which one can use different algebraic geometry codes to achieve better error decoding probability. In this paper, we study the performance of binary polar codes that are obtained from non-binary algebraic geometry codes using concatenation. For binary polar codes (i.e. binary kernels) of a given length $n$, we compare numerically the use of short algebraic geometry codes over large fields versus long algebraic geometry codes over small fields. We find that for each $n$ there is an optimal choice. For binary kernels of size up to $n \leq 1,800$ a concatenated Reed-Solomon code outperforms other choices. For larger kernel sizes concatenated Hermitian codes or Suzuki codes will do better.
1310.7163
Generalized Thompson Sampling for Contextual Bandits
cs.LG cs.AI stat.ML stat.OT
Thompson Sampling, one of the oldest heuristics for solving multi-armed bandits, has recently been shown to demonstrate state-of-the-art performance. The empirical success has led to great interests in theoretical understanding of this heuristic. In this paper, we approach this problem in a way very different from existing efforts. In particular, motivated by the connection between Thompson Sampling and exponentiated updates, we propose a new family of algorithms called Generalized Thompson Sampling in the expert-learning framework, which includes Thompson Sampling as a special case. Similar to most expert-learning algorithms, Generalized Thompson Sampling uses a loss function to adjust the experts' weights. General regret bounds are derived, which are also instantiated to two important loss functions: square loss and logarithmic loss. In contrast to existing bounds, our results apply to quite general contextual bandits. More importantly, they quantify the effect of the "prior" distribution on the regret bounds.
1310.7170
Object Recognition System Design in Computer Vision: a Universal Approach
cs.CV
The first contribution of this paper is architecture of a multipurpose system, which delegates a range of object detection tasks to a classifier, applied in special grid positions of the tested image. The second contribution is Gray Level-Radius Co-occurrence Matrix, which describes local image texture and topology and, unlike common second order statistics methods, is robust to image resolution. The third contribution is a parametrically controlled automatic synthesis of unlimited number of numerical features for classification. The fourth contribution is a method of optimizing parameters C and gamma in LibSVM-based classifier, which is 20-100 times faster than the commonly applied method. The work is essentially experimental, with demonstration of various methods for definition of objects of interest in images and video sequences.
1310.7198
Anti-rumor dynamics and emergence of the timing threshold on complex network
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Anti-rumor dynamics is proposed on the basis of rumor dynamics and the characteristics of anti-rumor dynamics are explored by both mean-field equations and numerical simulations on complex network. The main metrics we study are the timing effect of combating rumor and the identification of influential nodes, which are what an efficient strategy against rumor may concern about. The results indicate that, there exists robust time dependence of anti-rumor dynamics and the timing threshold emerges as a consequence of launching the anti-rumor at different delay time after the beginning of rumor spreading. The timing threshold as a critical feature is further verified on a series of Barabasi-Albert scale-free networks (BA networks), where anti-rumor dynamics arises explicitly. The timing threshold is a network-dependent quantity and its value decreases as the average degree of the BA network increases until close to zero. Meanwhile, coreness also constitutes a better topological descriptor to identify hubs. Our results will hopefully be useful for the understanding of spreading behaviors of rumor and anti-rumor and suggest a possible avenue for further study of interplays of multiple pieces of information on complex network.
1310.7205
Algorithms for Timed Consistency Models
cs.DC cs.DB cs.DS
One of the major challenges in distributed systems is establishing consistency among replicated data in a timely fashion. While the consistent ordering of events has been extensively researched, the time span to reach a consistent state is mostly considered an effect of the chosen consistency model, rather than being considered a parameter itself. This paper argues that it is possible to give guarantees on the timely consistency of an operation. Subsequent to an update the cloud and all connected clients will either be consistent with the update within the defined upper bound of time or the update will be returned. This paper suggests the respective algorithms and protocols capable of producing such comprehensive Timed Consistency, as conceptually proposed by Torres-Rojas et al. The solution offers business customers an increasing level of predictability and adjustability. The temporal certainty concerning the execution makes the cloud a more attractive tool for time-critical or mission-critical applications fearing the poor availability of Strong Consistency in cloud environments.
1310.7217
Compressed Sensing SAR Imaging with Multilook Processing
cs.IT cs.CV math.IT
Multilook processing is a widely used speckle reduction approach in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. Conventionally, it is achieved by incoherently summing of some independent low-resolution images formulated from overlapping subbands of the SAR signal. However, in the context of compressive sensing (CS) SAR imaging, where the samples are collected at sub-Nyquist rate, the data spectrum is highly aliased that hinders the direct application of the existing multilook techniques. In this letter, we propose a new CS-SAR imaging method that can realize multilook processing simultaneously during image reconstruction. The main idea is to replace the SAR observation matrix by the inverse of multilook procedures, which is then combined with random sampling matrix to yield a multilook CS-SAR observation model. Then a joint sparse regularization model, considering pixel dependency of subimages, is derived to form multilook images. The suggested SAR imaging method can not only reconstruct sparse scene efficiently below Nyquist rate, but is also able to achieve a comparable reduction of speckles during reconstruction. Simulation results are finally provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
1310.7262
Input Design for Model Discrimination and Fault Detection via Convex Relaxation
cs.SY math.OC
This paper addresses the design of input signals for the purpose of discriminating among a finite set of models dynamic systems within a given finite time interval. A motivating application is fault detection and isolation. We propose several specific optimization problems, with objectives or constraints based on signal power, signal amplitude, and probability of successful model discrimination. Since these optimization problems are nonconvex, we suggest a suboptimal solution via a random search algorithm guided by the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) and analyze the accuracy of the suboptimal solution. We conclude with a simple example taken from a benchmark problem on fault detection for wind turbines.
1310.7276
On the extraction of instantaneous frequencies from ridges in time-frequency representations of signals
cs.CE math.NA physics.data-an
The extraction of oscillatory components and their properties from different time-frequency representations, such as windowed Fourier transform and wavelet transform, is an important topic in signal processing. The first step in this procedure is to find an appropriate ridge curve: a sequence of amplitude peak positions (ridge points), corresponding to the component of interest. This is not a trivial issue, and the optimal method for extraction is still not settled or agreed. We discuss and develop procedures that can be used for this task and compare their performance on both simulated and real data. In particular, we propose a method which, in contrast to many other approaches, is highly adaptive so that it does not need any parameter adjustment for the signal to be analysed. Being based on dynamic path optimization and fixed point iteration, the method is very fast, and its superior accuracy is also demonstrated. In addition, we investigate the advantages and drawbacks that synchrosqueezing offers in relation to curve extraction. The codes used in this work are freely available for download.
1310.7282
Massive MIMO Systems: Signal Processing Challenges and Research Trends
cs.IT math.IT
This article presents a tutorial on multiuser multiple-antenna wireless systems with a very large number of antennas, known as massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. Signal processing challenges and future trends in the area of massive MIMO systems are presented and key application scenarios are detailed. A linear algebra approach is considered for the description of the system and data models of massive MIMO architectures. The operational requirements of massive MIMO systems are discussed along with their operation in time-division duplexing mode, resource allocation and calibration requirements. In particular, transmit and receiver processing algorithms are examined in light of the specific needs of massive MIMO systems. Simulation results illustrate the performance of transmit and receive processing algorithms under scenarios of interest. Key problems are discussed and future trends in the area of massive MIMO systems are pointed out.
1310.7297
Scalable Visibility Color Map Construction in Spatial Databases
cs.DB
Recent advances in 3D modeling provide us with real 3D datasets to answer queries, such as "What is the best position for a new billboard?" and "Which hotel room has the best view?" in the presence of obstacles. These applications require measuring and differentiating the visibility of an object (target) from different viewpoints in a dataspace, e.g., a billboard may be seen from two viewpoints but is readable only from the viewpoint closer to the target. In this paper, we formulate the above problem of quantifying the visibility of (from) a target object from (of) the surrounding area with a visibility color map (VCM). A VCM is essentially defined as a surface color map of the space, where each viewpoint of the space is assigned a color value that denotes the visibility measure of the target from that viewpoint. Measuring the visibility of a target even from a single viewpoint is an expensive operation, as we need to consider factors such as distance, angle, and obstacles between the viewpoint and the target. Hence, a straightforward approach to construct the VCM that requires visibility computation for every viewpoint of the surrounding space of the target, is prohibitively expensive in terms of both I/Os and computation, especially for a real dataset comprising of thousands of obstacles. We propose an efficient approach to compute the VCM based on a key property of the human vision that eliminates the necessity of computing the visibility for a large number of viewpoints of the space. To further reduce the computational overhead, we propose two approximations; namely, minimum bounding rectangle and tangential approaches with guaranteed error bounds. Our extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our solutions to construct the VCM for real 2D and 3D datasets.
1310.7300
Relax but stay in control: from value to algorithms for online Markov decision processes
cs.LG math.OC stat.ML
Online learning algorithms are designed to perform in non-stationary environments, but generally there is no notion of a dynamic state to model constraints on current and future actions as a function of past actions. State-based models are common in stochastic control settings, but commonly used frameworks such as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) assume a known stationary environment. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in combining the above two frameworks and considering an MDP setting in which the cost function is allowed to change arbitrarily after each time step. However, most of the work in this area has been algorithmic: given a problem, one would develop an algorithm almost from scratch. Moreover, the presence of the state and the assumption of an arbitrarily varying environment complicate both the theoretical analysis and the development of computationally efficient methods. This paper describes a broad extension of the ideas proposed by Rakhlin et al. to give a general framework for deriving algorithms in an MDP setting with arbitrarily changing costs. This framework leads to a unifying view of existing methods and provides a general procedure for constructing new ones. Several new methods are presented, and one of them is shown to have important advantages over a similar method developed from scratch via an online version of approximate dynamic programming.
1310.7305
Optimized Markov Chain Monte Carlo for Signal Detection in MIMO Systems: an Analysis of Stationary Distribution and Mixing Time
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we introduce an optimized Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique for solving the integer least-squares (ILS) problems, which include Maximum Likelihood (ML) detection in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems. Two factors contribute to the speed of finding the optimal solution by the MCMC detector: the probability of the optimal solution in the stationary distribution, and the mixing time of the MCMC detector. Firstly, we compute the optimal value of the "temperature" parameter, in the sense that the temperature has the desirable property that once the Markov chain has mixed to its stationary distribution, there is polynomially small probability ($1/\mbox{poly}(N)$, instead of exponentially small) of encountering the optimal solution. This temperature is shown to be at most $O(\sqrt{SNR}/\ln(N))$, where $SNR$ is the signal-to-noise ratio, and $N$ is the problem dimension. Secondly, we study the mixing time of the underlying Markov chain of the proposed MCMC detector. We find that, the mixing time of MCMC is closely related to whether there is a local minimum in the lattice structures of ILS problems. For some lattices without local minima, the mixing time of the Markov chain is independent of $SNR$, and grows polynomially in the problem dimension; for lattices with local minima, the mixing time grows unboundedly as $SNR$ grows, when the temperature is set, as in conventional wisdom, to be the standard deviation of noises. Our results suggest that, to ensure fast mixing for a fixed dimension $N$, the temperature for MCMC should instead be set as $\Omega(\sqrt{SNR})$ in general. Simulation results show that the optimized MCMC detector efficiently achieves approximately ML detection in MIMO systems having a huge number of transmit and receive dimensions.
1310.7311
On the Degrees of Freedom of Asymmetric MIMO Interference Broadcast Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study the degrees of freedom (DoF) of the asymmetric multi-input-multi-output interference broadcast channel (MIMO-IBC). By introducing a notion of connection pattern chain, we generalize the genie chain proposed in [11] to derive and prove the necessary condition of IA feasibility for asymmetric MIMO-IBC, which is denoted as irreducible condition. It is necessary for both linear interference alignment (IA) and asymptotic IA feasibility in MIMO-IBC with arbitrary configurations. In a special class of asymmetric two-cell MIMOIBC, the irreducible condition is proved to be the sufficient and necessary condition for asymptotic IA feasibility, while the combination of proper condition and irreducible condition is proved to the sufficient and necessary condition for linear IA feasibility. From these conditions, we derive the information theoretic maximal DoF per user and the maximal DoF per user achieved by linear IA, and these DoFs are also the DoF per user upper-bounds of asymmetric G-cell MIMO-IBC with asymptotic IA and linear IA, respectively.
1310.7320
High Dimensional Robust M-Estimation: Asymptotic Variance via Approximate Message Passing
math.ST cs.IT math.IT stat.TH
In a recent article (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 110(36), 14557-14562), El Karoui et al. study the distribution of robust regression estimators in the regime in which the number of parameters p is of the same order as the number of samples n. Using numerical simulations and `highly plausible' heuristic arguments, they unveil a striking new phenomenon. Namely, the regression coefficients contain an extra Gaussian noise component that is not explained by classical concepts such as the Fisher information matrix. We show here that that this phenomenon can be characterized rigorously techniques that were developed by the authors to analyze the Lasso estimator under high-dimensional asymptotics. We introduce an approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm to compute M-estimators and deploy state evolution to evaluate the operating characteristics of AMP and so also M-estimates. Our analysis clarifies that the `extra Gaussian noise' encountered in this problem is fundamentally similar to phenomena already studied for regularized least squares in the setting n<p.
1310.7324
Distributed Estimation of a Parametric Field: Algorithms and Performance Analysis
cs.IT math.IT
This paper presents a distributed estimator for a deterministic parametric physical field sensed by a homogeneous sensor network and develops a new transformed expression for the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) on the variance of distributed estimates. The proposed transformation reduces a multidimensional integral representation of the CRLB to an expression involving an infinite sum. Stochastic models used in this paper assume additive noise in both the observation and transmission channels. Two cases of data transmission are considered. The first case assumes a linear analog modulation of raw observations prior to their transmission to a fusion center. In the second case, each sensor quantizes its observation to $M$ levels, and the quantized data are communicated to a fusion center. In both cases, parallel additive white Gaussian channels are assumed. The paper develops an iterative expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate unknown parameters of a parametric field, and its linearized version is adopted for numerical analysis. The performance of the developed numerical solution is compared to the performance of a simple iterative approach based on Newton's approximation. While the developed solution has a higher complexity than Newton's solution, it is more robust with respect to the choice of initial parameters and has a better estimation accuracy. Numerical examples are provided for the case of a field modeled as a Gaussian bell, and illustrate the advantages of using the transformed expression for the CRLB. However, the distributed estimator and the derived CRLB are general and can be applied to any parametric field. The dependence of the mean-square error (MSE) on the number of quantization levels, the number of sensors in the network and the SNR of the observation and transmission channels are analyzed. The variance of the estimates is compared to the derived CRLB.
1310.7346
Excitable human dynamics driven by extrinsic events in massive communities
physics.soc-ph cs.CE cs.SI
Using empirical data from a social media site (Twitter) and on trading volumes of financial securities, we analyze the correlated human activity in massive social organizations. The activity, typically excited by real-world events and measured by the occurrence rate of international brand names and trading volumes, is characterized by intermittent fluctuations with bursts of high activity separated by quiescent periods. These fluctuations are broadly distributed with an inverse cubic tail and have long-range temporal correlations with a $1/f$ power spectrum. We describe the activity by a stochastic point process and derive the distribution of activity levels from the corresponding stochastic differential equation. The distribution and the corresponding power spectrum are fully consistent with the empirical observations.
1310.7367
Semantic Description of Web Services
cs.AI
The tasks of semantic web service (discovery, selection, composition, and execution) are supposed to enable seamless interoperation between systems, whereby human intervention is kept at a minimum. In the field of Web service description research, the exploitation of descriptions of services through semantics is a better support for the life-cycle of Web services. The large number of developed ontologies, languages of representations, and integrated frameworks supporting the discovery, composition and invocation of services is a good indicator that research in the field of Semantic Web Services (SWS) has been considerably active. We provide in this paper a detailed classification of the approaches and solutions, indicating their core characteristics and objectives required and provide indicators for the interested reader to follow up further insights and details about these solutions and related software.
1310.7368
Formulation and Steady-state Analysis of LMS Adaptive Networks for Distributed Estimation in the Presence of Transmission Errors
cs.SY cs.NI
This article presents the formulation and steady-state analysis of the distributed estimation algorithms based on the diffusion cooperation scheme in the presence of errors due to the unreliable data transfer among nodes. In particular, we highlight the impact of transmission errors on the least-mean squares (LMS) adaptive networks. We develop the closed-form expressions of the steady-state mean-square deviation (MSD) which is helpful to assess the effects of the imperfect information flow on on the behavior of the diffusion LMS algorithm in terms of the steady-state error. The model is then validated by performing Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that local and global MSD curves are not necessarily monotonic increasing functions of the error probability. We also assess sufficient conditions that ensure mean and mean-square stability of diffusion LMS strategies in the presence of transmission errors. Moreover, issues such as scalability in the sense of network size and regressor size, spatially correlated observations, as well as the effect of the distribution of the noise variance are studied. While the proposed theoretical framework is general in the sense that it is not confined to a particular source of error during information diffusion, for practical reasons we additionally study a specific scenario where errors occur at the medium access control (MAC) level. We develop a model to quantify the MAC-level transmission errors according to the network topology and system parameters for a set of nodes employing a backoff procedure to access the channel. To overcome the problem of unreliable data exchange, we propose an enhanced combining rule that can be deployed in order to improve the performance of diffusion estimation algorithms by using the knowledge of the properties of the transmission errors.
1310.7418
Infinite Secret Sharing -- Examples
cs.CR cs.IT math.IT math.PR
The motivation for extending secret sharing schemes to cases when either the set of players is infinite or the domain from which the secret and/or the shares are drawn is infinite or both, is similar to the case when switching to abstract probability spaces from classical combinatorial probability. It might shed new light on old problems, could connect seemingly unrelated problems, and unify diverse phenomena. Definitions equivalent in the finitary case could be very much different when switching to infinity, signifying their difference. The standard requirement that qualified subsets should be able to determine the secret has different interpretations in spite of the fact that, by assumption, all participants have infinite computing power. The requirement that unqualified subsets should have no, or limited information on the secret suggests that we also need some probability distribution. In the infinite case events with zero probability are not necessarily impossible, and we should decide whether bad events with zero probability are allowed or not. In this paper, rather than giving precise definitions, we enlist an abundance of hopefully interesting infinite secret sharing schemes. These schemes touch quite diverse areas of mathematics such as projective geometry, stochastic processes and Hilbert spaces. Nevertheless our main tools are from probability theory. The examples discussed here serve as foundation and illustration to the more theory oriented companion paper.
1310.7423
Infinite Probabilistic Secret Sharing
cs.CR cs.IT math.IT math.PR
A probabilistic secret sharing scheme is a joint probability distribution of the shares and the secret together with a collection of secret recovery functions. The study of schemes using arbitrary probability spaces and unbounded number of participants allows us to investigate their abstract properties, to connect the topic to other branches of mathematics, and to discover new design paradigms. A scheme is perfect if unqualified subsets have no information on the secret, that is, their total share is independent of the secret. By relaxing this security requirement, three other scheme types are defined. Our first result is that every (infinite) access structure can be realized by a perfect scheme where the recovery functions are non-measurable. The construction is based on a paradoxical pair of independent random variables which determine each other. Restricting the recovery functions to be measurable ones, we give a complete characterization of access structures realizable by each type of the schemes. In addition, either a vector-space or a Hilbert-space based scheme is constructed realizing the access structure. While the former one uses the traditional uniform distributions, the latter one uses Gaussian distributions, leading to a new design paradigm.
1310.7425
User Selection in MIMO Interfering Broadcast Channels
cs.IT math.IT
Interference alignment aims to achieve maximum degrees of freedom in an interference system. For achieving Interference alignment in interfering broadcast systems a closed-form solution is proposed in [1] which is an extension of the grouping scheme in [2]. In a downlink scenario where there are a large number of users, the base station is required to select a subset of users such that the sum rate is maximized. To search for the optimal user subset using brute-force approach is computationally exhaustive because of the large number of possible user subset combinations. We propose a user selection algorithm achieving sum rate close to that of optimal solution. The algorithm employs coordinate ascent approach and exploits orthogonality between the desired signal space and the interference channel space in the reciprocal system to select the user at each step. For the sake of completeness, we have also extended the sum rate approach based algorithm to Interfering broadcast channel. The complexity of both these algorithms is shown to be linear with respect to the total number of users as compared to exponential in brute-force search.
1310.7428
Musical recommendations and personalization in a social network
cs.IR
This paper presents a set of algorithms used for music recommendations and personalization in a general purpose social network www.ok.ru, the second largest social network in the CIS visited by more then 40 millions users per day. In addition to classical recommendation features like "recommend a sequence" and "find similar items" the paper describes novel algorithms for construction of context aware recommendations, personalization of the service, handling of the cold-start problem, and more. All algorithms described in the paper are working on-line and are able to detect and address changes in the user's behavior and needs in the real time. The core component of the algorithms is a taste graph containing information about different entities (users, tracks, artists, etc.) and relations between them (for example, user A likes song B with certainty X, track B created by artist C, artist C is similar to artist D with certainty Y and so on). Using the graph it is possible to select tracks a user would most probably like, to arrange them in a way that they match each other well, to estimate which items from a fixed list are most relevant for the user, and more. In addition, the paper describes the approach used to estimate algorithms efficiency and analyze the impact of different recommendation related features on the users' behavior and overall activity at the service.
1310.7433
Unified Subharmonic Oscillation Conditions for Peak or Average Current Mode Control
cs.SY math.DS nlin.CD
This paper is an extension of the author's recent research in which only buck converters were analyzed. Similar analysis can be equally applied to other types of converters. In this paper, a unified model is proposed for buck, boost, and buck-boost converters under peak or average current mode control to predict the occurrence of subharmonic oscillation. Based on the unified model, the associated stability conditions are derived in closed forms. The same stability condition can be applied to buck, boost, and buck-boost converters. Based on the closed-form conditions, the effects of various converter parameters including the compensator poles and zeros on the stability can be clearly seen, and these parameters can be consolidated into a few ones. High-order compensators such as type-II and PI compensators are considered. Some new plots are also proposed for design purpose to avoid the instability. The instability is found to be associated with large crossover frequency. A conservative stability condition, agreed with the past research, is derived. The effect of the voltage loop ripple on the instability is also analyzed.
1310.7440
Neural perceptual model to global-local vision for recognition of the logical structure of administrative documents
cs.CV
This paper gives the definition of Transparent Neural Network "TNN" for the simulation of the globallocal vision and its application to the segmentation of administrative document image. We have developed and have adapted a recognition method which models the contextual effects reported from studies in experimental psychology. Then, we evaluated and tested the TNN and the multi-layer perceptron "MLP", which showed its effectiveness in the field of the recognition, in order to show that the TNN is clearer for the user and more powerful on the level of the recognition. Indeed, the TNN is the only system which makes it possible to recognize the document and its structure.
1310.7441
Hierarchical Clustering of Hyperspectral Images using Rank-Two Nonnegative Matrix Factorization
cs.CV cs.IR math.OC
In this paper, we design a hierarchical clustering algorithm for high-resolution hyperspectral images. At the core of the algorithm, a new rank-two nonnegative matrix factorizations (NMF) algorithm is used to split the clusters, which is motivated by convex geometry concepts. The method starts with a single cluster containing all pixels, and, at each step, (i) selects a cluster in such a way that the error at the next step is minimized, and (ii) splits the selected cluster into two disjoint clusters using rank-two NMF in such a way that the clusters are well balanced and stable. The proposed method can also be used as an endmember extraction algorithm in the presence of pure pixels. The effectiveness of this approach is illustrated on several synthetic and real-world hyperspectral images, and shown to outperform standard clustering techniques such as k-means, spherical k-means and standard NMF.
1310.7442
Ranking basic belief assignments in decision making under uncertain environment
cs.AI
Dempster-Shafer theory (D-S theory) is widely used in decision making under the uncertain environment. Ranking basic belief assignments (BBAs) now is an open issue. Existing evidence distance measures cannot rank the BBAs in the situations when the propositions have their own ranking order or their inherent measure of closeness. To address this issue, a new ranking evidence distance (RED) measure is proposed. Compared with the existing evidence distance measures including the Jousselme's distance and the distance between betting commitments, the proposed RED measure is much more general due to the fact that the order of the propositions in the systems is taken into consideration. If there is no order or no inherent measure of closeness in the propositions, our proposed RED measure is reduced to the existing evidence distance. Numerical examples show that the proposed RED measure is an efficient alternative to rank BBAs in decision making under uncertain environment.
1310.7443
On Convergent Finite Difference Schemes for Variational - PDE Based Image Processing
cs.CV math.NA
We study an adaptive anisotropic Huber functional based image restoration scheme. By using a combination of L2-L1 regularization functions, an adaptive Huber functional based energy minimization model provides denoising with edge preservation in noisy digital images. We study a convergent finite difference scheme based on continuous piecewise linear functions and use a variable splitting scheme, namely the Split Bregman, to obtain the discrete minimizer. Experimental results are given in image denoising and comparison with additive operator splitting, dual fixed point, and projected gradient schemes illustrate that the best convergence rates are obtained for our algorithm.
1310.7447
Impulse Noise Removal In Speech Using Wavelets
cs.CV
A new method for removing impulse noise from speech in the wavelet transform domain is proposed. The method utilizes the multiresolution property of the wavelet transform, which provides finer time resolution at the higher frequencies than the short-time Fourier transform (STFT), to effectively identify and remove impulse noise. It uses two features of speech to discriminate speech from impulse noise: one is the slow time-varying nature of speech and the other is the Lipschitz regularity of the speech components. On the basis of these features, an algorithm has been developed to identify and suppress wavelet coefficients that correspond to impulse noise. Experiment results show that the new method is able to significantly reduce impulse noise without degrading the quality of the speech signal or introducing any audible artifacts.
1310.7448
An iterative algorithm for computed tomography image reconstruction from limited-angle projections
cs.CV
In application of tomography imaging, limited-angle problem is a quite practical and important issue. In this paper, an iterative reprojection-reconstruction (IRR) algorithm using a modified Papoulis-Gerchberg (PG) iterative scheme is developed for reconstruction from limited-angle projections which contain noise. The proposed algorithm has two iterative update processes, one is the extrapolation of unknown data, and the other is the modification of the known noisy observation data. And the algorithm introduces scaling factors to control the two processes, respectively. The convergence of the algorithm is guaranteed, and the method of choosing the scaling factors is given with energy constraints. The simulation result demonstrates our conclusions and indicates that the algorithm proposed in this paper can obviously improve the reconstruction quality.
1310.7473
Connectivity of confined 3D Networks with Anisotropically Radiating Nodes
cs.IT cond-mat.dis-nn cond-mat.stat-mech cs.NI math.IT
Nodes in ad hoc networks with randomly oriented directional antenna patterns typically have fewer short links and more long links which can bridge together otherwise isolated subnetworks. This network feature is known to improve overall connectivity in 2D random networks operating at low channel path loss. To this end, we advance recently established results to obtain analytic expressions for the mean degree of 3D networks for simple but practical anisotropic gain profiles, including those of patch, dipole and end-fire array antennas. Our analysis reveals that for homogeneous systems (i.e. neglecting boundary effects) directional radiation patterns are superior to the isotropic case only when the path loss exponent is less than the spatial dimension. Moreover, we establish that ad hoc networks utilizing directional transmit and isotropic receive antennas (or vice versa) are always sub-optimally connected regardless of the environment path loss. We extend our analysis to investigate boundary effects in inhomogeneous systems, and study the geometrical reasons why directional radiating nodes are at a disadvantage to isotropic ones. Finally, we discuss multi-directional gain patterns consisting of many equally spaced lobes which could be used to mitigate boundary effects and improve overall network connectivity.
1310.7525
Coding theorems for compound problems via quantum R\'enyi divergences
quant-ph cs.IT math-ph math.IT math.MP
Recently, a new notion of quantum R\'enyi divergences has been introduced by M\"uller-Lennert, Dupuis, Szehr, Fehr and Tomamichel, J.Math.Phys. 54:122203, (2013), and Wilde, Winter, Yang, Commun.Math.Phys. 331:593--622, (2014), that has found a number of applications in strong converse theorems. Here we show that these new R\'enyi divergences are also useful tools to obtain coding theorems in the direct domain of various problems. We demonstrate this by giving new and considerably simplified proofs for the achievability parts of Stein's lemma with composite null hypothesis, universal state compression, and the classical capacity of compound classical-quantum channels, based on single-shot error bounds already available in the literature, and simple properties of the quantum R\'enyi divergences. The novelty of our proofs is that the composite/compound coding theorems can be almost directly obtained from the single-shot error bounds, with essentially the same effort as for the case of simple null-hypothesis/single source/single channel.
1310.7529
Successive Nonnegative Projection Algorithm for Robust Nonnegative Blind Source Separation
stat.ML cs.LG math.NA math.OC
In this paper, we propose a new fast and robust recursive algorithm for near-separable nonnegative matrix factorization, a particular nonnegative blind source separation problem. This algorithm, which we refer to as the successive nonnegative projection algorithm (SNPA), is closely related to the popular successive projection algorithm (SPA), but takes advantage of the nonnegativity constraint in the decomposition. We prove that SNPA is more robust than SPA and can be applied to a broader class of nonnegative matrices. This is illustrated on some synthetic data sets, and on a real-world hyperspectral image.
1310.7532
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match: Migration of Populations via Marriages in the Past
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.dis-nn cs.CE nlin.AO q-bio.PE
The study of human mobility is both of fundamental importance and of great potential value. For example, it can be leveraged to facilitate efficient city planning and improve prevention strategies when faced with epidemics. The newfound wealth of rich sources of data---including banknote flows, mobile phone records, and transportation data---has led to an explosion of attempts to characterize modern human mobility. Unfortunately, the dearth of comparable historical data makes it much more difficult to study human mobility patterns from the past. In this paper, we present an analysis of long-term human migration, which is important for processes such as urbanization and the spread of ideas. We demonstrate that the data record from Korean family books (called "jokbo") can be used to estimate migration patterns via marriages from the past 750 years. We apply two generative models of long-term human mobility to quantify the relevance of geographical information to human marriage records in the data, and we find that the wide variety in the geographical distributions of the clans poses interesting challenges for the direct application of these models. Using the different geographical distributions of clans, we quantify the "ergodicity" of clans in terms of how widely and uniformly they have spread across Korea, and we compare these results to those obtained using surname data from the Czech Republic. To examine population flow in more detail, we also construct and examine a population-flow network between regions. Based on the correlation between ergodicity and migration in Korea, we identify two different types of migration patterns: diffusive and convective. We expect the analysis of diffusive versus convective effects in population flows to be widely applicable to the study of mobility and migration patterns across different cultures.
1310.7536
New Constructions of Codes for Asymmetric Channels via Concatenation
cs.IT math.IT
We present new constructions of codes for asymmetric channels for both binary and nonbinary alphabets, based on methods of generalized code concatenation. For the binary asymmetric channel, our methods construct nonlinear single-error-correcting codes from ternary outer codes. We show that some of the Varshamov-Tenengol'ts-Constantin-Rao codes, a class of binary nonlinear codes for this channel, have a nice structure when viewed as ternary codes. In many cases, our ternary construction yields even better codes. For the nonbinary asymmetric channel, our methods construct linear codes for many lengths and distances which are superior to the linear codes of the same length capable of correcting the same number of symmetric errors. In the binary case, Varshamov has shown that almost all good linear codes for the asymmetric channel are also good for the symmetric channel. Our results indicate that Varshamov's argument does not extend to the nonbinary case, i.e., one can find better linear codes for asymmetric channels than for symmetric ones.
1310.7552
An Algorithm for Exact Super-resolution and Phase Retrieval
cs.IT cs.NA math.IT
We explore a fundamental problem of super-resolving a signal of interest from a few measurements of its low-pass magnitudes. We propose a 2-stage tractable algorithm that, in the absence of noise, admits perfect super-resolution of an $r$-sparse signal from $2r^2-2r+2$ low-pass magnitude measurements. The spike locations of the signal can assume any value over a continuous disk, without increasing the required sample size. The proposed algorithm first employs a conventional super-resolution algorithm (e.g. the matrix pencil approach) to recover unlabeled sets of signal correlation coefficients, and then applies a simple sorting algorithm to disentangle and retrieve the true parameters in a deterministic manner. Our approach can be adapted to multi-dimensional spike models and random Fourier sampling by replacing its first step with other harmonic retrieval algorithms.
1310.7568
Interlimb neural connection is not required for gait transition in quadruped locomotion
q-bio.QM cs.RO cs.SY
Quadrupeds transition spontaneously to various gait patterns (e.g., walk, trot, pace, gallop) in response to the locomotion speed. The generation of these gait patterns has been the subject of debate for a long time. We propose a coupled oscillator model that is coupled with the physical interactions of the body. The results of this study showed that the gait pattern transitions spontaneously to walking/trotting/pacing/bounding in manner similar to that of real quadruped animals when the resonating portion of the body is changed according to the speed of leg movement. We also observed that pacing is expressed exclusively instead of trotting by changing the physical characteristics. In addition to leading to understanding of the principles of locomotion in living things, the coupled oscillator model proposed in this study is expected to lead to the creation of a legged robot that can select an energy-efficient gait and transition to it spontaneously.
1310.7610
Distributed Reinforcement Learning via Gossip
cs.DC cs.AI math.OC
We consider the classical TD(0) algorithm implemented on a network of agents wherein the agents also incorporate the updates received from neighboring agents using a gossip-like mechanism. The combined scheme is shown to converge for both discounted and average cost problems.
1310.7648
Wireless-Powered Relays in Cooperative Communications: Time-Switching Relaying Protocols and Throughput Analysis
cs.IT math.IT
We consider wireless-powered amplify-and-forward and decode-and-forward relaying in cooperative communications, where an energy constrained relay node first harvests energy through the received radio-frequency signal from the source and then uses the harvested energy to forward the source information to the destination node. We propose time-switching based energy harvesting (EH) and information transmission (IT) protocols with two modes of EH at the relay. For continuous time EH, the EH time can be any percentage of the total transmission block time. For discrete time EH, the whole transmission block is either used for EH or IT. The proposed protocols are attractive because they do not require channel state information at the transmitter side and enable relay transmission with preset fixed transmission power. We derive analytical expressions of the achievable throughput for the proposed protocols. The derived expressions are verified by comparison with simulations and allow the system performance to be determined as a function of the system parameters. Finally, we show that the proposed protocols outperform the existing fixed time duration EH protocols in the literature, since they intelligently track the level of the harvested energy to switch between EH and IT in an online fashion, allowing efficient use of resources.
1310.7652
Connectivity and Giant Component of Stochastic Kronecker Graphs
math.CO cs.DM cs.SI
Stochastic Kronecker graphs are a model for complex networks where each edge is present independently according the Kronecker (tensor) product of a fixed matrix k-by-k matrix P with entries in [0,1]. We develop a novel correspondence between the adjacencies in a general stochastic Kronecker graph and the action of a fixed Markov chain. Using this correspondence we are able to generalize the arguments of Horn and Radcliffe on the emergence of the giant component from the case where k = 2 to arbitrary k. We are also able to use this correspondence to completely analyze the connectivity of a general stochastic Kronecker graph.
1310.7665
Counting Triangles in Real-World Graph Streams: Dealing with Repeated Edges and Time Windows
cs.DS cs.DM cs.SI
Real-world graphs often manifest as a massive temporal stream of edges. The need for real-time analysis of such large graph streams has led to progress on low memory, one-pass streaming graph algorithms. These algorithms were designed for simple graphs, assuming an edge is not repeated in the stream. Real graph streams however, are almost always multigraphs i.e., they contain many duplicate edges. The assumption of no repeated edges requires an extra pass *storing all the edges* just for deduplication, which defeats the purpose of small memory algorithms. We describe an algorithm for estimating the triangle count of a multigraph stream of edges. We show that all previous streaming algorithms for triangle counting fail for multigraph streams, despite their impressive accuracies for simple graphs. The bias created by duplicate edges is a major problem, and leads these algorithms astray. Our algorithm avoids these biases through careful debiasing strategies and has provable theoretical guarantees and excellent empirical performance. Our algorithm builds on the previously introduced wedge sampling methodology. Another challenge in analyzing temporal graphs is finding the right temporal window size. Our algorithm seamlessly handles multiple time windows, and does not require committing to any window size(s) a priori. We apply our algorithm to discover fascinating transitivity and triangle trends in real-world graph streams.
1310.7679
Structured Optimal Transmission Control in Network-coded Two-way Relay Channels
cs.SY stat.ML
This paper considers a transmission control problem in network-coded two-way relay channels (NC-TWRC), where the relay buffers random symbol arrivals from two users, and the channels are assumed to be fading. The problem is modeled by a discounted infinite horizon Markov decision process (MDP). The objective is to find a transmission control policy that minimizes the symbol delay, buffer overflow and transmission power consumption and error rate simultaneously and in the long run. By using the concepts of submodularity, multimodularity and L-natural convexity, we study the structure of the optimal policy searched by dynamic programming (DP) algorithm. We show that the optimal transmission policy is nondecreasing in queue occupancies or/and channel states under certain conditions such as the chosen values of parameters in the MDP model, channel modeling method, modulation scheme and the preservation of stochastic dominance in the transitions of system states. The results derived in this paper can be used to relieve the high complexity of DP and facilitate real-time control.
1310.7682
Contextualizing concepts using a mathematical generalization of the quantum formalism
q-bio.NC cs.AI quant-ph
We outline the rationale and preliminary results of using the state context property (SCOP) formalism, originally developed as a generalization of quantum mechanics, to describe the contextual manner in which concepts are evoked, used and combined to generate meaning. The quantum formalism was developed to cope with problems arising in the description of (i) the measurement process, and (ii) the generation of new states with new properties when particles become entangled. Similar problems arising with concepts motivated the formal treatment introduced here. Concepts are viewed not as fixed representations, but entities existing in states of potentiality that require interaction with a context-a stimulus or another concept-to 'collapse' to an instantiated form (e.g. exemplar, prototype, or other possibly imaginary instance). The stimulus situation plays the role of the measurement in physics, acting as context that induces a change of the cognitive state from superposition state to collapsed state. The collapsed state is more likely to consist of a conjunction of concepts for associative than analytic thought because more stimulus or concept properties take part in the collapse. We provide two contextual measures of conceptual distance-one using collapse probabilities and the other weighted properties-and show how they can be applied to conjunctions using the pet fish problem.
1310.7729
Optimal cooperative motion planning for vehicles at intersections
cs.SY
We consider the problem of cooperative intersection management. It arises in automated transportation systems for people or goods but also in multi-robots environment. Therefore many solutions have been proposed to avoid collisions. The main problem is to determine collision-free but also deadlock-free and optimal algorithms. Even with a simple definition of optimality, finding a global optimum is a problem of high complexity, especially for open systems involving a large and varying number of vehicles. This paper advocates the use of a mathematical framework based on a decomposition of the problem into a continuous optimization part and a scheduling problem. The paper emphasizes connections between the usual notion of vehicle priority and an abstract formulation of the scheduling problem in the coordination space. A constructive locally optimal algorithm is proposed. More generally, this work opens up for new computationally efficient cooperative motion planning algorithms.
1310.7769
Temporal stability in human interaction networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
This paper reports on stable (or invariant) properties of human interaction networks, with benchmarks derived from public email lists. Activity, recognized through messages sent, along time and topology were observed in snapshots in a timeline, and at different scales. Our analysis shows that activity is practically the same for all networks across timescales ranging from seconds to months. The principal components of the participants in the topological metrics space remain practically unchanged as different sets of messages are considered. The activity of participants follows the expected scale-free trace, thus yielding the hub, intermediary and peripheral classes of vertices by comparison against the Erd\"os-R\'enyi model. The relative sizes of these three sectors are essentially the same for all email lists and the same along time. Typically, $<15\%$ of the vertices are hubs, 15-45\% are intermediary and $>45\%$ are peripheral vertices. Similar results for the distribution of participants in the three sectors and for the relative importance of the topological metrics were obtained for 12 additional networks from Facebook, Twitter and ParticipaBR. These properties are consistent with the literature and may be general for human interaction networks, which has important implications for establishing a typology of participants based on quantitative criteria.
1310.7780
The Information Geometry of Mirror Descent
stat.ML cs.LG
Information geometry applies concepts in differential geometry to probability and statistics and is especially useful for parameter estimation in exponential families where parameters are known to lie on a Riemannian manifold. Connections between the geometric properties of the induced manifold and statistical properties of the estimation problem are well-established. However developing first-order methods that scale to larger problems has been less of a focus in the information geometry community. The best known algorithm that incorporates manifold structure is the second-order natural gradient descent algorithm introduced by Amari. On the other hand, stochastic approximation methods have led to the development of first-order methods for optimizing noisy objective functions. A recent generalization of the Robbins-Monro algorithm known as mirror descent, developed by Nemirovski and Yudin is a first order method that induces non-Euclidean geometries. However current analysis of mirror descent does not precisely characterize the induced non-Euclidean geometry nor does it consider performance in terms of statistical relative efficiency. In this paper, we prove that mirror descent induced by Bregman divergences is equivalent to the natural gradient descent algorithm on the dual Riemannian manifold. Using this equivalence, it follows that (1) mirror descent is the steepest descent direction along the Riemannian manifold of the exponential family; (2) mirror descent with log-likelihood loss applied to parameter estimation in exponential families asymptotically achieves the classical Cram\'er-Rao lower bound and (3) natural gradient descent for manifolds corresponding to exponential families can be implemented as a first-order method through mirror descent.
1310.7782
Individual Biases, Cultural Evolution, and the Statistical Nature of Language Universals: The Case of Colour Naming Systems
physics.soc-ph cs.CL cs.MA q-bio.PE
Language universals have long been attributed to an innate Universal Grammar. An alternative explanation states that linguistic universals emerged independently in every language in response to shared cognitive or perceptual biases. A computational model has recently shown how this could be the case, focusing on the paradigmatic example of the universal properties of colour naming patterns, and producing results in quantitative agreement with the experimental data. Here we investigate the role of an individual perceptual bias in the framework of the model. We study how, and to what extent, the structure of the bias influences the corresponding linguistic universal patterns. We show that the cultural history of a group of speakers introduces population-specific constraints that act against the pressure for uniformity arising from the individual bias, and we clarify the interplay between these two forces.
1310.7794
Energy Efficiency Optimization in Relay-Assisted MIMO Systems with Perfect and Statistical CSI
cs.IT math.IT math.OC
A framework for energy-efficient resource allocation in a single-user, amplify-and-forward relay-assisted MIMO system is devised in this paper. Previous results in this area have focused on rate maximization or sum power minimization problems, whereas fewer results are available when bits/Joule energy efficiency (EE) optimization is the goal. The performance metric to optimize is the ratio between the system's achievable rate and the total consumed power. The optimization is carried out with respect to the source and relay precoding matrices, subject to QoS and power constraints. Such a challenging non-convex problem is tackled by means of fractional programming and and alternating maximization algorithms, for various CSI assumptions at the source and relay. In particular the scenarios of perfect CSI and those of statistical CSI for either the source-relay or the relay-destination channel are addressed. Moreover, sufficient conditions for beamforming optimality are derived, which is useful in simplifying the system design. Numerical results are provided to corroborate the validity of the theoretical findings.
1310.7795
An Unsupervised Feature Learning Approach to Improve Automatic Incident Detection
cs.LG
Sophisticated automatic incident detection (AID) technology plays a key role in contemporary transportation systems. Though many papers were devoted to study incident classification algorithms, few study investigated how to enhance feature representation of incidents to improve AID performance. In this paper, we propose to use an unsupervised feature learning algorithm to generate higher level features to represent incidents. We used real incident data in the experiments and found that effective feature mapping function can be learnt from the data crosses the test sites. With the enhanced features, detection rate (DR), false alarm rate (FAR) and mean time to detect (MTTD) are significantly improved in all of the three representative cases. This approach also provides an alternative way to reduce the amount of labeled data, which is expensive to obtain, required in training better incident classifiers since the feature learning is unsupervised.
1310.7799
Backhaul Limited Asymmetric Cooperation for MIMO Cellular Networks via Semidefinite Relaxation
cs.IT math.IT
Multicell cooperation has recently attracted tremendous attention because of its ability to eliminate intercell interference and increase spectral efficiency. However, the enormous amount of information being exchanged, including channel state information and user data, over backhaul links may deteriorate the network performance in a realistic system. This paper adopts a backhaul cost metric that considers the number of active directional cooperation links, which gives a first order measurement of the backhaul loading required in asymmetric Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) cooperation. We focus on a downlink scenario for multi-antenna base stations and single-antenna mobile stations. The design problem is minimizing the number of active directional cooperation links and jointly optimizing the beamforming vectors among the cooperative BSs subject to signal-to-interference-and-noise-ratio (SINR) constraints at the mobile station. This problem is non-convex and solving it requires combinatorial search. A practical algorithm based on smooth approximation and semidefinite relaxation is proposed to solve the combinatorial problem efficiently. We show that semidefinite relaxation is tight with probability 1 in our algorithm and stationary convergence is guaranteed. Simulation results show the saving of backhaul cost and power consumption is notable compared with several baseline schemes and its effectiveness is demonstrated.
1310.7813
Smoothness-Constrained Image Recovery from Block-Based Random Projections
cs.CV cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we address the problem of visual quality of images reconstructed from block-wise random projections. Independent reconstruction of the blocks can severely affect visual quality, by displaying artifacts along block borders. We propose a method to enforce smoothness across block borders by modifying the sensing and reconstruction process so as to employ partially overlapping blocks. The proposed algorithm accomplishes this by computing a fast preview from the blocks, whose purpose is twofold. On one hand, it allows to enforce a set of constraints to drive the reconstruction algorithm towards a smooth solution, imposing the similarity of block borders. On the other hand, the preview is used as a predictor of the entire block, allowing to recover the prediction error, only. The quality improvement over the result of independent reconstruction can be easily assessed both visually and in terms of PSNR and SSIM index.
1310.7828
A Complete Parameterized Complexity Analysis of Bounded Planning
cs.AI cs.DS
The propositional planning problem is a notoriously difficult computational problem, which remains hard even under strong syntactical and structural restrictions. Given its difficulty it becomes natural to study planning in the context of parameterized complexity. In this paper we continue the work initiated by Downey, Fellows and Stege on the parameterized complexity of planning with respect to the parameter "length of the solution plan." We provide a complete classification of the parameterized complexity of the planning problem under two of the most prominent syntactical restrictions, i.e., the so called PUBS restrictions introduced by Baeckstroem and Nebel and restrictions on the number of preconditions and effects as introduced by Bylander. We also determine which of the considered fixed-parameter tractable problems admit a polynomial kernel and which don't.
1310.7829
About Summarization in Large Fuzzy Databases
cs.DB cs.IR
Moved by the need increased for modeling of the fuzzy data, the success of the systems of exact generation of summary of data, we propose in this paper, a new approach of generation of summary from fuzzy data called Fuzzy-SaintEtiQ. This approach is an extension of the SaintEtiQ model to support the fuzzy data. It presents the following optimizations such as 1) the minimization of the expert risk; 2) the construction of a more detailed and more precise summaries hierarchy, and 3) the co-operation with the user by giving him fuzzy summaries in different hierarchical levels
1310.7839
Achieving maximum energy-efficiency in multi-relay OFDMA cellular networks: a fractional programming approach
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, the joint power and subcarrier allocation problem is solved in the context of maximizing the energy-efficiency (EE) of a multi-user, multi-relay orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) cellular network, where the objective function is formulated as the ratio of the spectral-efficiency (SE) over the total power dissipation. It is proven that the fractional programming problem considered is quasi-concave so that Dinkelbach's method may be employed for finding the optimal solution at a low complexity. This method solves the above-mentioned master problem by solving a series of parameterized concave secondary problems. These secondary problems are solved using a dual decomposition approach, where each secondary problem is further decomposed into a number of similar subproblems. The impact of various system parameters on the attainable EE and SE of the system employing both EE maximization (EEM) and SE maximization (SEM) algorithms is characterized. In particular, it is observed that increasing the number of relays for a range of cell sizes, although marginally increases the attainable SE, reduces the EE significantly. It is noted that the highest SE and EE are achieved, when the relays are placed closer to the BS to take advantage of the resultant line-of-sight link. Furthermore, increasing both the number of available subcarriers and the number of active user equipment (UE) increases both the EE and the total SE of the system as a benefit of the increased frequency and multi-user diversity, respectively. Finally, it is demonstrated that as expected, increasing the available power tends to improve the SE, when using the SEM algorithm. By contrast, given a sufficiently high available power, the EEM algorithm attains the maximum achievable EE and a suboptimal SE.
1310.7852
Conditional Entropy based User Selection for Multiuser MIMO Systems
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of user subset selection for maximizing the sum rate of downlink multi-user MIMO systems. The brute-force search for the optimal user set becomes impractical as the total number of users in a cell increase. We propose a user selection algorithm based on conditional differential entropy. We apply the proposed algorithm on Block diagonalization scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed conditional entropy based algorithm offers better alternatives than the existing user selection algorithms. Furthermore, in terms of sum rate, the solution obtained by the proposed algorithm turns out to be close to the optimal solution with significantly lower computational complexity than brute-force search.
1310.7868
Automatic Classification of Variable Stars in Catalogs with missing data
astro-ph.IM cs.LG stat.ML
We present an automatic classification method for astronomical catalogs with missing data. We use Bayesian networks, a probabilistic graphical model, that allows us to perform inference to pre- dict missing values given observed data and dependency relationships between variables. To learn a Bayesian network from incomplete data, we use an iterative algorithm that utilises sampling methods and expectation maximization to estimate the distributions and probabilistic dependencies of variables from data with missing values. To test our model we use three catalogs with missing data (SAGE, 2MASS and UBVI) and one complete catalog (MACHO). We examine how classification accuracy changes when information from missing data catalogs is included, how our method compares to traditional missing data approaches and at what computational cost. Integrating these catalogs with missing data we find that classification of variable objects improves by few percent and by 15% for quasar detection while keeping the computational cost the same.
1310.7935
The Unreasonable Fundamental Incertitudes Behind Bitcoin Mining
cs.CR cs.CE cs.SI
Bitcoin is a "crypto currency", a decentralized electronic payment scheme based on cryptography which has recently gained excessive popularity. Scientific research on bitcoin is less abundant. A paper at Financial Cryptography 2012 conference explains that it is a system which "uses no fancy cryptography", and is "by no means perfect". It depends on a well-known cryptographic standard SHA-256. In this paper we revisit the cryptographic process which allows one to make money by producing bitcoins. We reformulate this problem as a Constrained Input Small Output (CISO) hashing problem and reduce the problem to a pure block cipher problem. We estimate the speed of this process and we show that the cost of this process is less than it seems and it depends on a certain cryptographic constant which we estimated to be at most 1.86. These optimizations enable bitcoin miners to save tens of millions of dollars per year in electricity bills. Miners who set up mining operations face many economic incertitudes such as high volatility. In this paper we point out that there are fundamental incertitudes which depend very strongly on the bitcoin specification. The energy efficiency of bitcoin miners have already been improved by a factor of about 10,000, and we claim that further improvements are inevitable. Better technology is bound to be invented, would it be quantum miners. More importantly, the specification is likely to change. A major change have been proposed in May 2013 at Bitcoin conference in San Diego by Dan Kaminsky. However, any sort of change could be flatly rejected by the community which have heavily invested in mining with the current technology. Another question is the reward halving scheme in bitcoin. The current bitcoin specification mandates a strong 4-year cyclic property. We find this property totally unreasonable and harmful and explain why and how it needs to be changed.
1310.7950
Technical Report: Distribution Temporal Logic: Combining Correctness with Quality of Estimation
cs.SY cs.AI cs.LO
We present a new temporal logic called Distribution Temporal Logic (DTL) defined over predicates of belief states and hidden states of partially observable systems. DTL can express properties involving uncertainty and likelihood that cannot be described by existing logics. A co-safe formulation of DTL is defined and algorithmic procedures are given for monitoring executions of a partially observable Markov decision process with respect to such formulae. A simulation case study of a rescue robotics application outlines our approach.
1310.7951
IRM4MLS: the influence reaction model for multi-level simulation
cs.MA
In this paper, a meta-model called IRM4MLS, that aims to be a generic ground to specify and execute multi-level agent-based models is presented. It relies on the influence/reaction principle and more specifically on IRM4S. Simulation models for IRM4MLS are defined. The capabilities and possible extensions of the meta-model are discussed.
1310.7957
A Random Walk Model for Item Recommendation in Folksonomies
cs.IR
Social tagging, as a novel approach to information organization and discovery, has been widely adopted in many Web2.0 applications. The tags provide a new type of information that can be exploited by recommender systems. Nevertheless, the sparsity of ternary <user, tag, item> interaction data limits the performance of tag-based collaborative filtering. This paper proposes a random-walk-based algorithm to deal with the sparsity problem in social tagging data, which captures the potential transitive associations between users and items through their interaction with tags. In particular, two smoothing strategies are presented from both the user-centric and item-centric perspectives. Experiments on real-world data sets empirically demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.
1310.7961
Evaluation the efficiency of artificial bee colony and the firefly algorithm in solving the continuous optimization problem
cs.NE cs.AI
Now the Meta-Heuristic algorithms have been used vastly in solving the problem of continuous optimization. In this paper the Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm and the Firefly Algorithm (FA) are valuated. And for presenting the efficiency of the algorithms and also for more analysis of them, the continuous optimization problems which are of the type of the problems of vast limit of answer and the close optimized points are tested. So, in this paper the efficiency of the ABC algorithm and FA are presented for solving the continuous optimization problems and also the said algorithms are studied from the accuracy in reaching the optimized solution and the resulting time and the reliability of the optimized answer points of view.
1310.7981
Toward a Formal Model of the Shifting Relationship between Concepts and Contexts during Associative Thought
q-bio.NC cs.AI
The quantum inspired State Context Property (SCOP) theory of concepts is unique amongst theories of concepts in offering a means of incorporating that for each concept in each different context there are an unlimited number of exemplars, or states, of varying degrees of typicality. Working with data from a study in which participants were asked to rate the typicality of exemplars of a concept for different contexts, and introducing an exemplar typicality threshold, we built a SCOP model of how states of a concept arise differently in associative versus analytic (or divergent and convergent) modes of thought. Introducing measures of state robustness and context relevance, we show that by varying the threshold, the relevance of different contexts changes, and seemingly atypical states can become typical. The formalism provides a pivotal step toward a formal explanation of creative thought proesses.
1310.7991
Learning Sparsely Used Overcomplete Dictionaries via Alternating Minimization
cs.LG math.OC stat.ML
We consider the problem of sparse coding, where each sample consists of a sparse linear combination of a set of dictionary atoms, and the task is to learn both the dictionary elements and the mixing coefficients. Alternating minimization is a popular heuristic for sparse coding, where the dictionary and the coefficients are estimated in alternate steps, keeping the other fixed. Typically, the coefficients are estimated via $\ell_1$ minimization, keeping the dictionary fixed, and the dictionary is estimated through least squares, keeping the coefficients fixed. In this paper, we establish local linear convergence for this variant of alternating minimization and establish that the basin of attraction for the global optimum (corresponding to the true dictionary and the coefficients) is $\order{1/s^2}$, where $s$ is the sparsity level in each sample and the dictionary satisfies RIP. Combined with the recent results of approximate dictionary estimation, this yields provable guarantees for exact recovery of both the dictionary elements and the coefficients, when the dictionary elements are incoherent.
1310.7994
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Novel Word Detection in Separable Topic Models
cs.LG cs.IR stat.ML
The simplicial condition and other stronger conditions that imply it have recently played a central role in developing polynomial time algorithms with provable asymptotic consistency and sample complexity guarantees for topic estimation in separable topic models. Of these algorithms, those that rely solely on the simplicial condition are impractical while the practical ones need stronger conditions. In this paper, we demonstrate, for the first time, that the simplicial condition is a fundamental, algorithm-independent, information-theoretic necessary condition for consistent separable topic estimation. Furthermore, under solely the simplicial condition, we present a practical quadratic-complexity algorithm based on random projections which consistently detects all novel words of all topics using only up to second-order empirical word moments. This algorithm is amenable to distributed implementation making it attractive for 'big-data' scenarios involving a network of large distributed databases.
1310.8004
Online Ensemble Learning for Imbalanced Data Streams
cs.LG stat.ML
While both cost-sensitive learning and online learning have been studied extensively, the effort in simultaneously dealing with these two issues is limited. Aiming at this challenge task, a novel learning framework is proposed in this paper. The key idea is based on the fusion of online ensemble algorithms and the state of the art batch mode cost-sensitive bagging/boosting algorithms. Within this framework, two separately developed research areas are bridged together, and a batch of theoretically sound online cost-sensitive bagging and online cost-sensitive boosting algorithms are first proposed. Unlike other online cost-sensitive learning algorithms lacking theoretical analysis of asymptotic properties, the convergence of the proposed algorithms is guaranteed under certain conditions, and the experimental evidence with benchmark data sets also validates the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed methods.
1310.8038
Community Structures Are Definable in Networks: A Structural Theory of Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We found that neither randomness in the ER model nor the preferential attachment in the PA model is the mechanism of community structures of networks, that community structures are universal in real networks, that community structures are definable in networks, that communities are interpretable in networks, and that homophyly is the mechanism of community structures and a structural theory of networks. We proposed the notions of entropy- and conductance-community structures. It was shown that the two definitions of the entropy- and conductance-community structures and the notion of modularity proposed by physicists are all equivalent in defining community structures of networks, that neither randomness in the ER model nor preferential attachment in the PA model is the mechanism of community structures of networks, and that the existence of community structures is a universal phenomenon in real networks. This poses a fundamental question: What are the mechanisms of community structures of real networks? To answer this question, we proposed a homophyly model of networks. It was shown that networks of our model satisfy a series of new topological, probabilistic and combinatorial principles, including a fundamental principle, a community structure principle, a degree priority principle, a widths principle, an inclusion and infection principle, a king node principle and a predicting principle etc. The new principles provide a firm foundation for a structural theory of networks. Our homophyly model demonstrates that homophyly is the underlying mechanism of community structures of networks, that nodes of the same community share common features, that power law and small world property are never obstacles of the existence of community structures in networks, that community structures are {\it definable} in networks, and that (natural) communities are {\it interpretable}.
1310.8040
Homophyly and Randomness Resist Cascading Failure in Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
The universal properties of power law and small world phenomenon of networks seem unavoidably obstacles for security of networking systems. Existing models never give secure networks. We found that the essence of security is the security against cascading failures of attacks and that nature solves the security by mechanisms. We proposed a model of networks by the natural mechanisms of homophyly, randomness and preferential attachment. It was shown that homophyly creates a community structure, that homophyly and randomness introduce ordering in the networks, and that homophyly creates inclusiveness and introduces rules of infections. These principles allow us to provably guarantee the security of the networks against any attacks. Our results show that security can be achieved provably by structures, that there is a tradeoff between the roles of structures and of thresholds in security engineering, and that power law and small world property are never obstacles for security of networks.
1310.8057
User Effects in Beam-Space MIMO
cs.IT math.IT
The performance and design of the novel single-RF-chain beam-space MIMO antenna concept is evaluated for the first time in the presence of the user. First, the variations of different performance parameters are evaluated when placing a beam-space MIMO antenna in close proximity to the user body in several typical operating scenarios. In addition to the typical degradation of conventional antennas in terms of radiation efficiency and impedance matching, it is observed that the user body corrupts the power balance and the orthogonality of the beam-space MIMO basis. However, capacity analyses show that throughput reduction mainly stems from the absorption in user body tissues rather than from the power imbalance and the correlation of the basis. These results confirm that the beam-space MIMO concept, so far only demonstrated in the absence of external perturbation, still performs very well in typical human body interaction scenarios.
1310.8059
Description and Evaluation of Semantic Similarity Measures Approaches
cs.CL
In recent years, semantic similarity measure has a great interest in Semantic Web and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Several similarity measures have been developed, being given the existence of a structured knowledge representation offered by ontologies and corpus which enable semantic interpretation of terms. Semantic similarity measures compute the similarity between concepts/terms included in knowledge sources in order to perform estimations. This paper discusses the existing semantic similarity methods based on structure, information content and feature approaches. Additionally, we present a critical evaluation of several categories of semantic similarity approaches based on two standard benchmarks. The aim of this paper is to give an efficient evaluation of all these measures which help researcher and practitioners to select the measure that best fit for their requirements.
1310.8067
Convergence Constrained Multiuser Transmitter-Receiver Optimization in Single Carrier FDMA
cs.IT math.IT
Convergence constrained power allocation (CCPA) in single carrier multiuser (MU) single-input multiple-output (SIMO) systems with turbo equalization is considered in this paper. In order to exploit full benefit of the iterative receiver, its convergence properties need to be considered also at the transmitter side. The proposed scheme can guarantee that the desired quality of service (QoS) is achieved after sufficient amount of iterations. We propose two different successive convex approximations for solving the non-convex power minimization problem subject to user specific QoS constraints. The results of extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart analysis demonstrate that the proposed CCPA scheme can achieve the design objective. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes can achieve superior performance in terms of power consumption as compared to linear receivers with and without precoding as well as to the iterative receiver without precoding.
1310.8097
Guaranteed Collision Detection With Toleranced Motions
cs.CG cs.RO
We present a method for guaranteed collision detection with toleranced motions. The basic idea is to consider the motion as a curve in the 12-dimensional space of affine displacements, endowed with an object-oriented Euclidean metric, and cover it with balls. The associated orbits of points, lines, planes and polygons have particularly simple shapes that lend themselves well to exact and fast collision queries. We present formulas for elementary collision tests with these orbit shapes and we suggest an algorithm, based on motion subdivision and computation of bounding balls, that can give a no-collision guarantee. It allows a robust and efficient implementation and parallelization. At hand of several examples we explore the asymptotic behavior of the algorithm and compare different implementation strategies.
1310.8107
Scalable Frames and Convex Geometry
math.NA cs.IT math.FA math.IT
The recently introduced and characterized scalable frames can be considered as those frames which allow for perfect preconditioning in the sense that the frame vectors can be rescaled to yield a tight frame. In this paper we define $m$-scalability, a refinement of scalability based on the number of non-zero weights used in the rescaling process, and study the connection between this notion and elements from convex geometry. Finally, we provide results on the topology of scalable frames. In particular, we prove that the set of scalable frames with "small" redundancy is nowhere dense in the set of frames.
1310.8120
On the Tractability of Minimal Model Computation for Some CNF Theories
cs.AI cs.LO
Designing algorithms capable of efficiently constructing minimal models of CNFs is an important task in AI. This paper provides new results along this research line and presents new algorithms for performing minimal model finding and checking over positive propositional CNFs and model minimization over propositional CNFs. An algorithmic schema, called the Generalized Elimination Algorithm (GEA) is presented, that computes a minimal model of any positive CNF. The schema generalizes the Elimination Algorithm (EA) [BP97], which computes a minimal model of positive head-cycle-free (HCF) CNF theories. While the EA always runs in polynomial time in the size of the input HCF CNF, the complexity of the GEA depends on the complexity of the specific eliminating operator invoked therein, which may in general turn out to be exponential. Therefore, a specific eliminating operator is defined by which the GEA computes, in polynomial time, a minimal model for a class of CNF that strictly includes head-elementary-set-free (HEF) CNF theories [GLL06], which form, in their turn, a strict superset of HCF theories. Furthermore, in order to deal with the high complexity associated with recognizing HEF theories, an "incomplete" variant of the GEA (called IGEA) is proposed: the resulting schema, once instantiated with an appropriate elimination operator, always constructs a model of the input CNF, which is guaranteed to be minimal if the input theory is HEF. In the light of the above results, the main contribution of this work is the enlargement of the tractability frontier for the minimal model finding and checking and the model minimization problems.
1310.8135
Large-Scale Sensor Network Localization via Rigid Subnetwork Registration
cs.NI cs.IT cs.SY math.IT math.OC
In this paper, we describe an algorithm for sensor network localization (SNL) that proceeds by dividing the whole network into smaller subnetworks, then localizes them in parallel using some fast and accurate algorithm, and finally registers the localized subnetworks in a global coordinate system. We demonstrate that this divide-and-conquer algorithm can be used to leverage existing high-precision SNL algorithms to large-scale networks, which could otherwise only be applied to small-to-medium sized networks. The main contribution of this paper concerns the final registration phase. In particular, we consider a least-squares formulation of the registration problem (both with and without anchor constraints) and demonstrate how this otherwise non-convex problem can be relaxed into a tractable convex program. We provide some preliminary simulation results for large-scale SNL demonstrating that the proposed registration algorithm (together with an accurate localization scheme) offers a good tradeoff between run time and accuracy.
1310.8146
Dynamic adjustment: an electoral method for relaxed double proportionality
math.OC cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We describe an electoral system for distributing seats in a parliament. It gives proportionality for the political parties and close to proportionality for constituencies. The system suggested here is a version of the system used in Sweden and other Nordic countries with permanent seats in each constituency and adjustment seats to give proportionality on the national level. In the national election of 2010 the current Swedish system failed to give proportionality between parties. We examine here one possible cure for this unwanted behavior. The main difference compared to the current Swedish system is that the number of adjustment seats is not fixed, but rather dynamically determined to be as low as possible and still insure proportionality between parties.
1310.8185
Dynamics of popstar record sales on phonographic market -- stochastic model
stat.AP cs.SY math.DS physics.soc-ph
We investigate weekly record sales of the world's most popular 30 artists (2003-2013). Time series of sales have non-trivial kind of memory (anticorrelations, strong seasonality and constant autocorrelation decay within 120 weeks). Amount of artists record sales are usually the highest in the first week after premiere of their brand new records and then decrease to fluctuate around zero till next album release. We model such a behavior by discrete mean-reverting geometric jump diffusion (MRGJD) and Markov regime switching mechanism (MRS) between the base and the promotion regimes. We can built up the evidence through such a toy model that quantifies linear and nonlinear dynamical components (with stationary and nonstationary parameters set), and measure local divergence of the system with collective behavior phenomena. We find special kind of disagreement between model and data for Christmas time due to unusual shopping behavior. Analogies to earthquakes, product life-cycles, and energy markets will also be discussed.
1310.8187
SmartLoc: Sensing Landmarks Silently for Smartphone Based Metropolitan Localization
cs.NI cs.CY cs.SY
We present \emph{SmartLoc}, a localization system to estimate the location and the traveling distance by leveraging the lower-power inertial sensors embedded in smartphones as a supplementary to GPS. To minimize the negative impact of sensor noises, \emph{SmartLoc} exploits the intermittent strong GPS signals and uses the linear regression to build a prediction model which is based on the trace estimated from inertial sensors and the one computed from the GPS. Furthermore, we utilize landmarks (e.g., bridge, traffic lights) detected automatically and special driving patterns (e.g., turning, uphill, and downhill) from inertial sensory data to improve the localization accuracy when the GPS signal is weak. Our evaluations of \emph{SmartLoc} in the city demonstrates its technique viability and significant localization accuracy improvement compared with GPS and other approaches: the error is approximately 20m for 90% of time while the known mean error of GPS is 42.22m.
1310.8220
Prediction of highly cited papers
physics.soc-ph cs.DL cs.SI
In an article written five years ago [arXiv:0809.0522], we described a method for predicting which scientific papers will be highly cited in the future, even if they are currently not highly cited. Applying the method to real citation data we made predictions about papers we believed would end up being well cited. Here we revisit those predictions, five years on, to see how well we did. Among the over 2000 papers in our original data set, we examine the fifty that, by the measures of our previous study, were predicted to do best and we find that they have indeed received substantially more citations in the intervening years than other papers, even after controlling for the number of prior citations. On average these top fifty papers have received 23 times as many citations in the last five years as the average paper in the data set as a whole, and 15 times as many as the average paper in a randomly drawn control group that started out with the same number of citations. Applying our prediction technique to current data, we also make new predictions of papers that we believe will be well cited in the next few years.
1310.8224
Transitive Reduction of Citation Networks
physics.soc-ph cs.DL cs.SI
In many complex networks the vertices are ordered in time, and edges represent causal connections. We propose methods of analysing such directed acyclic graphs taking into account the constraints of causality and highlighting the causal structure. We illustrate our approach using citation networks formed from academic papers, patents, and US Supreme Court verdicts. We show how transitive reduction reveals fundamental differences in the citation practices of different areas, how it highlights particularly interesting work, and how it can correct for the effect that the age of a document has on its citation count. Finally, we transitively reduce null models of citation networks with similar degree distributions and show the difference in degree distributions after transitive reduction to illustrate the lack of causal structure in such models.
1310.8226
Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval
cs.IR cs.DL physics.soc-ph
Bibliometric techniques are not yet widely used to enhance retrieval processes in digital libraries, although they offer value-added effects for users. In this workshop we will explore how statistical modelling of scholarship, such as Bradfordizing or network analysis of coauthorship network, can improve retrieval services for specific communities, as well as for large, cross-domain collections. This workshop aims to raise awareness of the missing link between information retrieval (IR) and bibliometrics/scientometrics and to create a common ground for the incorporation of bibliometric-enhanced services into retrieval at the digital library interface.
1310.8243
Para-active learning
cs.LG stat.ML
Training examples are not all equally informative. Active learning strategies leverage this observation in order to massively reduce the number of examples that need to be labeled. We leverage the same observation to build a generic strategy for parallelizing learning algorithms. This strategy is effective because the search for informative examples is highly parallelizable and because we show that its performance does not deteriorate when the sifting process relies on a slightly outdated model. Parallel active learning is particularly attractive to train nonlinear models with non-linear representations because there are few practical parallel learning algorithms for such models. We report preliminary experiments using both kernel SVMs and SGD-trained neural networks.
1310.8278
Satisfiability Modulo ODEs
cs.LO cs.SY
We study SMT problems over the reals containing ordinary differential equations. They are important for formal verification of realistic hybrid systems and embedded software. We develop delta-complete algorithms for SMT formulas that are purely existentially quantified, as well as exists-forall formulas whose universal quantification is restricted to the time variables. We demonstrate scalability of the algorithms, as implemented in our open-source solver dReal, on SMT benchmarks with several hundred nonlinear ODEs and variables.
1310.8293
Dimensions, Structures and Security of Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
One of the main issues in modern network science is the phenomenon of cascading failures of a small number of attacks. Here we define the dimension of a network to be the maximal number of functions or features of nodes of the network. It was shown that there exist linear networks which are provably secure, where a network is linear, if it has dimension one, that the high dimensions of networks are the mechanisms of overlapping communities, that overlapping communities are obstacles for network security, and that there exists an algorithm to reduce high dimensional networks to low dimensional ones which simultaneously preserves all the network properties and significantly amplifies security of networks. Our results explore that dimension is a fundamental measure of networks, that there exist linear networks which are provably secure, that high dimensional networks are insecure, and that security of networks can be amplified by reducing dimensions.
1310.8294
Community Structures Are Definable in Networks, and Universal in Real World
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Community detecting is one of the main approaches to understanding networks \cite{For2010}. However it has been a longstanding challenge to give a definition for community structures of networks. Here we found that community structures are definable in networks, and are universal in real world. We proposed the notions of entropy- and conductance-community structure ratios. It was shown that the definitions of the modularity proposed in \cite{NG2004}, and our entropy- and conductance-community structures are equivalent in defining community structures of networks, that randomness in the ER model \cite{ER1960} and preferential attachment in the PA \cite{Bar1999} model are not mechanisms of community structures of networks, and that the existence of community structures is a universal phenomenon in real networks. Our results demonstrate that community structure is a universal phenomenon in the real world that is definable, solving the challenge of definition of community structures in networks. This progress provides a foundation for a structural theory of networks.
1310.8295
Homophyly Networks -- A Structural Theory of Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
A grand challenge in network science is apparently the missing of a structural theory of networks. The authors have showed that the existence of community structures is a universal phenomenon in real networks, and that neither randomness nor preferential attachment is a mechanism of community structures of network \footnote{A. Li, J. Li, and Y. Pan, Community structures are definable in networks, and universal in the real world, To appear.}. This poses a fundamental question: What are the mechanisms of community structures of real networks? Here we found that homophyly is the mechanism of community structures and a structural theory of networks. We proposed a homophyly model. It was shown that networks of our model satisfy a series of new topological, probabilistic and combinatorial principles, including a fundamental principle, a community structure principle, a degree priority principle, a widths principle, an inclusion and infection principle, a king node principle, and a predicting principle etc, leading to a structural theory of networks. Our model demonstrates that homophyly is the underlying mechanism of community structures of networks, that nodes of the same community share common features, that power law and small world property are never obstacles of the existence of community structures in networks, and that community structures are definable in networks.
1310.8320
Safe and Efficient Screening For Sparse Support Vector Machine
cs.LG stat.ML
Screening is an effective technique for speeding up the training process of a sparse learning model by removing the features that are guaranteed to be inactive the process. In this paper, we present a efficient screening technique for sparse support vector machine based on variational inequality. The technique is both efficient and safe.
1310.8347
Quantum Imaging of High-Dimensional Hilbert Spaces with Radon Transform
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
High-dimensional Hilbert spaces possess large information encoding and transmission capabilities. Characterizing exactly the real potential of high-dimensional entangled systems is a cornerstone of tomography and quantum imaging. The accuracy of the measurement apparatus and devices used in quantum imaging is physically limited, which allows no further improvements to be made. To extend the possibilities, we introduce a post-processing method for quantum imaging that is based on the Radon transform and the projection-slice theorem. The proposed solution leads to an enhanced precision and a deeper parameterization of the information conveying capabilities of high-dimensional Hilbert spaces. We demonstrate the method for the analysis of high-dimensional position-momentum photonic entanglement. We show that the entropic separability bound in terms of standard deviations is violated considerably more strongly in comparison to the standard setting and current data processing. The results indicate that the possibilities of the quantum imaging of high-dimensional Hilbert spaces can be extended by applying appropriate calculations in the post-processing phase.
1310.8369
On the inverses of some classes of permutations of finite fields
math.NT cs.IT math.IT
We study the compositional inverses of some general classes of permutation polynomials over finite fields. We show that we can write these inverses in terms of the inverses of two other polynomials bijecting subspaces of the finite field, where one of these is a linearized polynomial. In some cases we are able to explicitly obtain these inverses, thus obtaining the compositional inverse of the permutation in question. In addition we show how to compute a linearized polynomial inducing the inverse map over subspaces on which a prescribed linearized polynomial induces a bijection. We also obtain the explicit compositional inverses of two classes of permutation polynomials generalizing those whose compositional inverses were recently obtained in [22] and [24], respectively.
1310.8387
Density-based and transport-based core-periphery structures in networks
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI q-bio.OT
Networks often possess mesoscale structures, and studying them can yield insights into both structure and function. It is most common to study community structure, but numerous other types of mesoscale structures also exist. In this paper, we examine core-periphery structures based on both density and transport. In such structures, core network components are well-connected both among themselves and to peripheral components, which are not well-connected to anything. We examine core-periphery structures in a wide range of examples of transportation, social, and financial networks---including road networks in large urban areas, a rabbit warren, a dolphin social network, a European interbank network, and a migration network between counties in the United States. We illustrate that a recently developed transport-based notion of node coreness is very useful for characterizing transportation networks. We also generalize this notion to examine core versus peripheral edges, and we show that the resulting diagnostic is also useful for transportation networks. To examine the properties of transportation networks further, we develop a family of generative models of roadlike networks. We illustrate the effect of the dimensionality of the embedding space on transportation networks, and we demonstrate that the correlations between different measures of coreness can be very different for different types of networks.