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0904.1193
Coherence Analysis of Iterative Thresholding Algorithms
cs.IT math.IT
There is a recent surge of interest in developing algorithms for finding sparse solutions of underdetermined systems of linear equations $y = \Phi x$. In many applications, extremely large problem sizes are envisioned, with at least tens of thousands of equations and hundreds of thousands of unknowns. For such problem sizes, low computational complexity is paramount. The best studied $\ell_1$ minimization algorithm is not fast enough to fulfill this need. Iterative thresholding algorithms have been proposed to address this problem. In this paper we want to analyze two of these algorithms theoretically, and give sufficient conditions under which they recover the sparsest solution.
0904.1227
Learning convex bodies is hard
cs.LG cs.CG
We show that learning a convex body in $\RR^d$, given random samples from the body, requires $2^{\Omega(\sqrt{d/\eps})}$ samples. By learning a convex body we mean finding a set having at most $\eps$ relative symmetric difference with the input body. To prove the lower bound we construct a hard to learn family of convex bodies. Our construction of this family is very simple and based on error correcting codes.
0904.1229
Finding an Unknown Acyclic Orientation of a Given Graph
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
Let c(G) be the smallest number of edges we have to test in order to determine an unknown acyclic orientation of the given graph G in the worst case. For example, if G is the complete graph on n vertices, then c(G) is the smallest number of comparisons needed to sort n numbers. We prove that c(G)\le (1/4+o(1))n^2 for any graph G on n vertices, answering in the affirmative a question of Aigner, Triesch, and Tuza [Discrete Mathematics, 144 (1995) 3-10]. Also, we show that, for every e>0, it is NP-hard to approximate the parameter c(G) within a multiplicative factor 74/73-e.
0904.1234
Mapping the evolution of scientific fields
physics.soc-ph cs.DL cs.IR
Despite the apparent cross-disciplinary interactions among scientific fields, a formal description of their evolution is lacking. Here we describe a novel approach to study the dynamics and evolution of scientific fields using a network-based analysis. We build an idea network consisting of American Physical Society Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS) numbers as nodes representing scientific concepts. Two PACS numbers are linked if there exist publications that reference them simultaneously. We locate scientific fields using a community finding algorithm, and describe the time evolution of these fields over the course of 1985-2006. The communities we identify map to known scientific fields, and their age depends on their size and activity. We expect our approach to quantifying the evolution of ideas to be relevant for making predictions about the future of science and thus help to guide its development.
0904.1258
An Investigation Report on Auction Mechanism Design
cs.AI cs.MA
Auctions are markets with strict regulations governing the information available to traders in the market and the possible actions they can take. Since well designed auctions achieve desirable economic outcomes, they have been widely used in solving real-world optimization problems, and in structuring stock or futures exchanges. Auctions also provide a very valuable testing-ground for economic theory, and they play an important role in computer-based control systems. Auction mechanism design aims to manipulate the rules of an auction in order to achieve specific goals. Economists traditionally use mathematical methods, mainly game theory, to analyze auctions and design new auction forms. However, due to the high complexity of auctions, the mathematical models are typically simplified to obtain results, and this makes it difficult to apply results derived from such models to market environments in the real world. As a result, researchers are turning to empirical approaches. This report aims to survey the theoretical and empirical approaches to designing auction mechanisms and trading strategies with more weights on empirical ones, and build the foundation for further research in the field.
0904.1281
Asymptotically Optimal Joint Source-Channel Coding with Minimal Delay
cs.IT math.IT
We present and analyze a joint source-channel coding strategy for the transmission of a Gaussian source across a Gaussian channel in n channel uses per source symbol. Among all such strategies, our scheme has the following properties: i) the resulting mean-squared error scales optimally with the signal-to-noise ratio, and ii) the scheme is easy to implement and the incurred delay is minimal, in the sense that a single source symbol is encoded at a time.
0904.1289
Language Diversity across the Consonant Inventories: A Study in the Framework of Complex Networks
cs.CL physics.comp-ph physics.soc-ph
n this paper, we attempt to explain the emergence of the linguistic diversity that exists across the consonant inventories of some of the major language families of the world through a complex network based growth model. There is only a single parameter for this model that is meant to introduce a small amount of randomness in the otherwise preferential attachment based growth process. The experiments with this model parameter indicates that the choice of consonants among the languages within a family are far more preferential than it is across the families. The implications of this result are twofold -- (a) there is an innate preference of the speakers towards acquiring certain linguistic structures over others and (b) shared ancestry propels the stronger preferential connection between the languages within a family than across them. Furthermore, our observations indicate that this parameter might bear a correlation with the period of existence of the language families under investigation.
0904.1299
On the Communication of Scientific Results: The Full-Metadata Format
cs.DL cs.IR physics.comp-ph physics.ins-det
In this paper, we introduce a scientific format for text-based data files, which facilitates storing and communicating tabular data sets. The so-called Full-Metadata Format builds on the widely used INI-standard and is based on four principles: readable self-documentation, flexible structure, fail-safe compatibility, and searchability. As a consequence, all metadata required to interpret the tabular data are stored in the same file, allowing for the automated generation of publication-ready tables and graphs and the semantic searchability of data file collections. The Full-Metadata Format is introduced on the basis of three comprehensive examples. The complete format and syntax is given in the appendix.
0904.1313
A Class of Novel STAP Algorithms Using Sparse Recovery Technique
cs.IT math.IT
A class of novel STAP algorithms based on sparse recovery technique were presented. Intrinsic sparsity of distribution of clutter and target energy on spatial-frequency plane was exploited from the viewpoint of compressed sensing. The original sample data and distribution of target and clutter energy was connected by a ill-posed linear algebraic equation and popular $L_1$ optimization method could be utilized to search for its solution with sparse characteristic. Several new filtering algorithm acting on this solution were designed to clean clutter component on spatial-frequency plane effectively for detecting invisible targets buried in clutter. The method above is called CS-STAP in general. CS-STAP showed their advantage compared with conventional STAP technique, such as SMI, in two ways: Firstly, the resolution of CS-STAP on estimation for distribution of clutter and target energy is ultra-high such that clutter energy might be annihilated almost completely by carefully tuned filter. Output SCR of CS-STAP algorithms is far superior to the requirement of detection; Secondly, a much smaller size of training sample support compared with SMI method is requested for CS-STAP method. Even with only one snapshot (from target range cell) could CS-STAP method be able to reveal the existence of target clearly. CS-STAP method display its great potential to be used in heterogeneous situation. Experimental result on dataset from mountaintop program has provided the evidence for our assertion on CS-STAP.
0904.1331
Primitive Polynomials, Singer Cycles, and Word-Oriented Linear Feedback Shift Registers
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
Using the structure of Singer cycles in general linear groups, we prove that a conjecture of Zeng, Han and He (2007) holds in the affirmative in a special case, and outline a plausible approach to prove it in the general case. This conjecture is about the number of primitive $\sigma$-LFSRs of a given order over a finite field, and it generalizes a known formula for the number of primitive LFSRs, which, in turn, is the number of primitive polynomials of a given degree over a finite field. Moreover, this conjecture is intimately related to an open question of Niederreiter (1995) on the enumeration of splitting subspaces of a given dimension.
0904.1366
A Unified Approach to Ranking in Probabilistic Databases
cs.DB cs.DS
The dramatic growth in the number of application domains that naturally generate probabilistic, uncertain data has resulted in a need for efficiently supporting complex querying and decision-making over such data. In this paper, we present a unified approach to ranking and top-k query processing in probabilistic databases by viewing it as a multi-criteria optimization problem, and by deriving a set of features that capture the key properties of a probabilistic dataset that dictate the ranked result. We contend that a single, specific ranking function may not suffice for probabilistic databases, and we instead propose two parameterized ranking functions, called PRF-w and PRF-e, that generalize or can approximate many of the previously proposed ranking functions. We present novel generating functions-based algorithms for efficiently ranking large datasets according to these ranking functions, even if the datasets exhibit complex correlations modeled using probabilistic and/xor trees or Markov networks. We further propose that the parameters of the ranking function be learned from user preferences, and we develop an approach to learn those parameters. Finally, we present a comprehensive experimental study that illustrates the effectiveness of our parameterized ranking functions, especially PRF-e, at approximating other ranking functions and the scalability of our proposed algorithms for exact or approximate ranking.
0904.1369
Cooperative Transmission for Wireless Relay Networks Using Limited Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
To achieve the available performance gains in half-duplex wireless relay networks, several cooperative schemes have been earlier proposed using either distributed space-time coding or distributed beamforming for the transmitter without and with channel state information (CSI), respectively. However, these schemes typically have rather high implementation and/or decoding complexities, especially when the number of relays is high. In this paper, we propose a simple low-rate feedback-based approach to achieve maximum diversity with a low decoding and implementation complexity. To further improve the performance of the proposed scheme, the knowledge of the second-order channel statistics is exploited to design long-term power loading through maximizing the receiver signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with appropriate constraints. This maximization problem is approximated by a convex feasibility problem whose solution is shown to be close to the optimal one in terms of the error probability. Subsequently, to provide robustness against feedback errors and further decrease the feedback rate, an extended version of the distributed Alamouti code is proposed. It is also shown that our scheme can be generalized to the differential transmission case, where it can be applied to wireless relay networks with no CSI available at the receiver.
0904.1409
MIMO Downlink Scheduling with Non-Perfect Channel State Knowledge
cs.IT math.IT
Downlink scheduling schemes are well-known and widely investigated under the assumption that the channel state is perfectly known to the scheduler. In the multiuser MIMO (broadcast) case, downlink scheduling in the presence of non-perfect channel state information (CSI) is only scantly treated. In this paper we provide a general framework that addresses the problem systematically. Also, we illuminate the key role played by the channel state prediction error: our scheme treats in a fundamentally different way users with small channel prediction error ("predictable" users) and users with large channel prediction error ("non-predictable" users), and can be interpreted as a near-optimal opportunistic time-sharing strategy between MIMO downlink beamforming to predictable users and space-time coding to nonpredictable users. Our results, based on a realistic MIMO channel model used in 3GPP standardization, show that the proposed algorithms can significantly outperform a conventional "mismatched" scheduling scheme that treats the available CSI as if it was perfect.
0904.1444
Spatial and Temporal Correlation of the Interference in ALOHA Ad Hoc Networks
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT math.PR
Interference is a main limiting factor of the performance of a wireless ad hoc network. The temporal and the spatial correlation of the interference makes the outages correlated temporally (important for retransmissions) and spatially correlated (important for routing). In this letter we quantify the temporal and spatial correlation of the interference in a wireless ad hoc network whose nodes are distributed as a Poisson point process on the plane when ALOHA is used as the multiple-access scheme.
0904.1446
Concavity of entropy under thinning
cs.IT math.IT
Building on the recent work of Johnson (2007) and Yu (2008), we prove that entropy is a concave function with respect to the thinning operation T_a. That is, if X and Y are independent random variables on Z_+ with ultra-log-concave probability mass functions, then H(T_a X+T_{1-a} Y)>= a H(X)+(1-a)H(Y), 0 <= a <= 1, where H denotes the discrete entropy. This is a discrete analogue of the inequality (h denotes the differential entropy) h(sqrt(a) X + sqrt{1-a} Y)>= a h(X)+(1-a) h(Y), 0 <= a <= 1, which holds for continuous X and Y with finite variances and is equivalent to Shannon's entropy power inequality. As a consequence we establish a special case of a conjecture of Shepp and Olkin (1981).
0904.1538
Shannon-Kotel'nikov Mappings for Analog Point-to-Point Communications
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper an approach to joint source-channel coding (JSCC) named Shannon-Kotel'nikov mappings (S-K mappings) is presented. S-K mappings are continuous, or piecewise continuous direct source-to-channel mappings operating directly on amplitude continuous and discrete time signals. Such mappings include several existing JSCC schemes as special cases. Many existing approaches to analog- or hybrid discrete analog JSCC provide both excellent performance as well as robustness to variations in noise level. This at low delay and relatively low complexity. However, a theory explaining their performance and behaviour on a general basis, as well as guidelines on how to construct close to optimal mappings in general, does not currently exist. Therefore, such mappings are often found based on educated guesses inspired of configurations that are known in advance to produce good solutions, combination of already existing mappings, numerical optimization or machine learning methods. The objective of this paper is to introduce a theoretical framework for analysis of analog- or hybrid discrete analog S-K mappings. This framework will enable calculation of distortion when applying such schemes on point-to-point links, reveal more about their fundamental nature, and provide guidelines on how they should be constructed in order to perform well at both low and arbitrary complexity and delay. Such guidelines will likely help constrain solutions to numerical approaches and help explain why machine learning approaches finds the solutions they do. This task is difficult and we do not provide a complete framework at this stage: We focus on high SNR and memoryless sources with an arbitrary continuous unimodal density function and memoryless Gaussian channels. We also provide example of mappings based on surfaces which are chosen based on the provided theory.
0904.1579
Online prediction of ovarian cancer
cs.AI cs.LG
In this paper we apply computer learning methods to diagnosing ovarian cancer using the level of the standard biomarker CA125 in conjunction with information provided by mass-spectrometry. We are working with a new data set collected over a period of 7 years. Using the level of CA125 and mass-spectrometry peaks, our algorithm gives probability predictions for the disease. To estimate classification accuracy we convert probability predictions into strict predictions. Our algorithm makes fewer errors than almost any linear combination of the CA125 level and one peak's intensity (taken on the log scale). To check the power of our algorithm we use it to test the hypothesis that CA125 and the peaks do not contain useful information for the prediction of the disease at a particular time before the diagnosis. Our algorithm produces $p$-values that are better than those produced by the algorithm that has been previously applied to this data set. Our conclusion is that the proposed algorithm is more reliable for prediction on new data.
0904.1613
On the closed-form solution of the rotation matrix arising in computer vision problems
cs.CV
We show the closed-form solution to the maximization of trace(A'R), where A is given and R is unknown rotation matrix. This problem occurs in many computer vision tasks involving optimal rotation matrix estimation. The solution has been continuously reinvented in different fields as part of specific problems. We summarize the historical evolution of the problem and present the general proof of the solution. We contribute to the proof by considering the degenerate cases of A and discuss the uniqueness of R.
0904.1629
Fuzzy inference based mentality estimation for eye robot agent
cs.RO cs.AI cs.HC
Household robots need to communicate with human beings in a friendly fashion. To achieve better understanding of displayed information, an importance and a certainty of the information should be communicated together with the main information. The proposed intent expression system aims to convey this additional information using an eye robot. The eye motions are represented as states in a pleasure-arousal space model. Change of the model state is calculated by fuzzy inference according to the importance and certainty of the displayed information. This change influences the arousal-sleep coordinate in the space which corresponds to activeness in communication. The eye robot provides a basic interface for the mascot robot system which is an easy to understand information terminal for home environments in a humatronics society.
0904.1631
Intent expression using eye robot for mascot robot system
cs.RO cs.AI cs.HC
An intent expression system using eye robots is proposed for a mascot robot system from a viewpoint of humatronics. The eye robot aims at providing a basic interface method for an information terminal robot system. To achieve better understanding of the displayed information, the importance and the degree of certainty of the information should be communicated along with the main content. The proposed intent expression system aims at conveying this additional information using the eye robot system. Eye motions are represented as the states in a pleasure-arousal space model. Changes in the model state are calculated by fuzzy inference according to the importance and degree of certainty of the displayed information. These changes influence the arousal-sleep coordinates in the space that corresponds to levels of liveliness during communication. The eye robot provides a basic interface for the mascot robot system that is easy to be understood as an information terminal for home environments in a humatronics society.
0904.1672
CP-logic: A Language of Causal Probabilistic Events and Its Relation to Logic Programming
cs.AI cs.LO
This papers develops a logical language for representing probabilistic causal laws. Our interest in such a language is twofold. First, it can be motivated as a fundamental study of the representation of causal knowledge. Causality has an inherent dynamic aspect, which has been studied at the semantical level by Shafer in his framework of probability trees. In such a dynamic context, where the evolution of a domain over time is considered, the idea of a causal law as something which guides this evolution is quite natural. In our formalization, a set of probabilistic causal laws can be used to represent a class of probability trees in a concise, flexible and modular way. In this way, our work extends Shafer's by offering a convenient logical representation for his semantical objects. Second, this language also has relevance for the area of probabilistic logic programming. In particular, we prove that the formal semantics of a theory in our language can be equivalently defined as a probability distribution over the well-founded models of certain logic programs, rendering it formally quite similar to existing languages such as ICL or PRISM. Because we can motivate and explain our language in a completely self-contained way as a representation of probabilistic causal laws, this provides a new way of explaining the intuitions behind such probabilistic logic programs: we can say precisely which knowledge such a program expresses, in terms that are equally understandable by a non-logician. Moreover, we also obtain an additional piece of knowledge representation methodology for probabilistic logic programs, by showing how they can express probabilistic causal laws.
0904.1692
Error Bounds for Repeat-Accumulate Codes Decoded via Linear Programming
cs.IT math.IT
We examine regular and irregular repeat-accumulate (RA) codes with repetition degrees which are all even. For these codes and with a particular choice of an interleaver, we give an upper bound on the decoding error probability of a linear-programming based decoder which is an inverse polynomial in the block length. Our bound is valid for any memoryless, binary-input, output-symmetric (MBIOS) channel. This result generalizes the bound derived by Feldman et al., which was for regular RA(2) codes.
0904.1700
Recovering the state sequence of hidden Markov models using mean-field approximations
cond-mat.dis-nn cond-mat.stat-mech cs.LG
Inferring the sequence of states from observations is one of the most fundamental problems in Hidden Markov Models. In statistical physics language, this problem is equivalent to computing the marginals of a one-dimensional model with a random external field. While this task can be accomplished through transfer matrix methods, it becomes quickly intractable when the underlying state space is large. This paper develops several low-complexity approximate algorithms to address this inference problem when the state space becomes large. The new algorithms are based on various mean-field approximations of the transfer matrix. Their performances are studied in detail on a simple realistic model for DNA pyrosequencing.
0904.1712
Turbo Packet Combining for Broadband Space-Time BICM Hybrid-ARQ Systems with Co-Channel Interference
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, efficient turbo packet combining for single carrier (SC) broadband multiple-input--multiple-output (MIMO) hybrid--automatic repeat request (ARQ) transmission with unknown co-channel interference (CCI) is studied. We propose a new frequency domain soft minimum mean square error (MMSE)-based signal level combining technique where received signals and channel frequency responses (CFR)s corresponding to all retransmissions are used to decode the data packet. We provide a recursive implementation algorithm for the introduced scheme, and show that both its computational complexity and memory requirements are quite insensitive to the ARQ delay, i.e., maximum number of ARQ rounds. Furthermore, we analyze the asymptotic performance, and show that under a sum-rank condition on the CCI MIMO ARQ channel, the proposed packet combining scheme is not interference-limited. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the gains offered by the proposed technique.
0904.1730
Feedback-based online network coding
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
Current approaches to the practical implementation of network coding are batch-based, and often do not use feedback, except possibly to signal completion of a file download. In this paper, the various benefits of using feedback in a network coded system are studied. It is shown that network coding can be performed in a completely online manner, without the need for batches or generations, and that such online operation does not affect the throughput. Although these ideas are presented in a single-hop packet erasure broadcast setting, they naturally extend to more general lossy networks which employ network coding in the presence of feedback. The impact of feedback on queue size at the sender and decoding delay at the receivers is studied. Strategies for adaptive coding based on feedback are presented, with the goal of minimizing the queue size and delay. The asymptotic behavior of these metrics is characterized, in the limit of the traffic load approaching capacity. Different notions of decoding delay are considered, including an order-sensitive notion which assumes that packets are useful only when delivered in order. Our work may be viewed as a natural extension of Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) schemes to coded networks.
0904.1812
Two Designs of Space-Time Block Codes Achieving Full Diversity with Partial Interference Cancellation Group Decoding
cs.IT math.IT
A partial interference cancellation (PIC) group decoding based space-time block code (STBC) design criterion was recently proposed by Guo and Xia, where the decoding complexity and the code rate trade-off is dealt when the full diversity is achieved. In this paper, two designs of STBC are proposed for any number of transmit antennas that can obtain full diversity when a PIC group decoding (with a particular grouping scheme) is applied at receiver. With the PIC group decoding and an appropriate grouping scheme for the decoding, the proposed STBC are shown to obtain the same diversity gain as the ML decoding, but have a low decoding complexity. The first proposed STBC is designed with multiple diagonal layers and it can obtain the full diversity for two-layer design with the PIC group decoding and the rate is up to 2 symbols per channel use. But with PIC-SIC group decoding, the first proposed STBC can obtain full diversity for any number of layers and the rate can be full. The second proposed STBC can obtain full diversity and a rate up to 9/4 with the PIC group decoding. Some code design examples are given and simulation results show that the newly proposed STBC can well address the rate-performance-complexity tradeoff of the MIMO systems.
0904.1840
Higher Dimensional Consensus: Learning in Large-Scale Networks
cs.IT cs.DC math.IT math.OC
The paper presents higher dimension consensus (HDC) for large-scale networks. HDC generalizes the well-known average-consensus algorithm. It divides the nodes of the large-scale network into anchors and sensors. Anchors are nodes whose states are fixed over the HDC iterations, whereas sensors are nodes that update their states as a linear combination of the neighboring states. Under appropriate conditions, we show that the sensor states converge to a linear combination of the anchor states. Through the concept of anchors, HDC captures in a unified framework several interesting network tasks, including distributed sensor localization, leader-follower, distributed Jacobi to solve linear systems of algebraic equations, and, of course, average-consensus. In many network applications, it is of interest to learn the weights of the distributed linear algorithm so that the sensors converge to a desired state. We term this inverse problem the HDC learning problem. We pose learning in HDC as a constrained non-convex optimization problem, which we cast in the framework of multi-objective optimization (MOP) and to which we apply Pareto optimality. We prove analytically relevant properties of the MOP solutions and of the Pareto front from which we derive the solution to learning in HDC. Finally, the paper shows how the MOP approach resolves interesting tradeoffs (speed of convergence versus quality of the final state) arising in learning in HDC in resource constrained networks.
0904.1888
On Fodor on Darwin on Evolution
cs.NE cs.LG
Jerry Fodor argues that Darwin was wrong about "natural selection" because (1) it is only a tautology rather than a scientific law that can support counterfactuals ("If X had happened, Y would have happened") and because (2) only minds can select. Hence Darwin's analogy with "artificial selection" by animal breeders was misleading and evolutionary explanation is nothing but post-hoc historical narrative. I argue that Darwin was right on all counts.
0904.1892
Lattice Strategies for the Dirty Multiple Access Channel
cs.IT math.IT
A generalization of the Gaussian dirty-paper problem to a multiple access setup is considered. There are two additive interference signals, one known to each transmitter but none to the receiver. The rates achievable using Costa's strategies (i.e. by a random binning scheme induced by Costa's auxiliary random variables) vanish in the limit when the interference signals are strong. In contrast, it is shown that lattice strategies ("lattice precoding") can achieve positive rates independent of the interferences, and in fact in some cases - which depend on the noise variance and power constraints - they are optimal. In particular, lattice strategies are optimal in the limit of high SNR. It is also shown that the gap between the achievable rate region and the capacity region is at most 0.167 bit. Thus, the dirty MAC is another instance of a network setup, like the Korner-Marton modulo-two sum problem, where linear coding is potentially better than random binning. Lattice transmission schemes and conditions for optimality for the asymmetric case, where there is only one interference which is known to one of the users (who serves as a "helper" to the other user), and for the "common interference" case are also derived. In the former case the gap between the helper achievable rate and its capacity is at most 0.085 bit.
0904.1897
Refined Coding Bounds and Code Constructions for Coherent Network Error Correction
cs.IT math.IT
Coherent network error correction is the error-control problem in network coding with the knowledge of the network codes at the source and sink nodes. With respect to a given set of local encoding kernels defining a linear network code, we obtain refined versions of the Hamming bound, the Singleton bound and the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for coherent network error correction. Similar to its classical counterpart, this refined Singleton bound is tight for linear network codes. The tightness of this refined bound is shown by two construction algorithms of linear network codes achieving this bound. These two algorithms illustrate different design methods: one makes use of existing network coding algorithms for error-free transmission and the other makes use of classical error-correcting codes. The implication of the tightness of the refined Singleton bound is that the sink nodes with higher maximum flow values can have higher error correction capabilities.
0904.1907
Average Entropy Functions
cs.IT cs.RO math.IT
The closure of the set of entropy functions associated with n discrete variables, Gammar*n, is a convex cone in (2n-1)- dimensional space, but its full characterization remains an open problem. In this paper, we map Gammar*n to an n-dimensional region Phi*n by averaging the joint entropies with the same number of variables, and show that the simpler Phi*n can be characterized solely by the Shannon-type information inequalities
0904.1910
Compressive Sampling with Known Spectral Energy Density
cs.IT cs.CE math.FA math.IT
A method to improve l1 performance of the CS (Compressive Sampling) for A-scan SFCW-GPR (Stepped Frequency Continuous Wave-Ground Penetrating Radar) signals with known spectral energy density is proposed. Instead of random sampling, the proposed method selects the location of samples to follow the distribution of the spectral energy. Samples collected from three different measurement methods; the uniform sampling, random sampling, and energy equipartition sampling, are used to reconstruct a given monocycle signal whose spectral energy density is known. Objective performance evaluation in term of PSNR (Peak Signal to Noise Ratio) indicates empirically that the CS reconstruction of random sampling outperform the uniform sampling, while the energy equipartition sampling outperforms both of them. These results suggest that similar performance improvement can be achieved for the compressive SFCW (Stepped Frequency Continuous Wave) radar, allowing even higher acquisition speed.
0904.1931
KiWi: A Scalable Subspace Clustering Algorithm for Gene Expression Analysis
cs.DB cs.AI q-bio.GN
Subspace clustering has gained increasing popularity in the analysis of gene expression data. Among subspace cluster models, the recently introduced order-preserving sub-matrix (OPSM) has demonstrated high promise. An OPSM, essentially a pattern-based subspace cluster, is a subset of rows and columns in a data matrix for which all the rows induce the same linear ordering of columns. Existing OPSM discovery methods do not scale well to increasingly large expression datasets. In particular, twig clusters having few genes and many experiments incur explosive computational costs and are completely pruned off by existing methods. However, it is of particular interest to determine small groups of genes that are tightly coregulated across many conditions. In this paper, we present KiWi, an OPSM subspace clustering algorithm that is scalable to massive datasets, capable of discovering twig clusters and identifying negative as well as positive correlations. We extensively validate KiWi using relevant biological datasets and show that KiWi correctly assigns redundant probes to the same cluster, groups experiments with common clinical annotations, differentiates real promoter sequences from negative control sequences, and shows good association with cis-regulatory motif predictions.
0904.1956
Ergodic Layered Erasure One-Sided Interference Channels
cs.IT math.IT
The sum capacity of a class of layered erasure one-sided interference channels is developed under the assumption of no channel state information at the transmitters. Outer bounds are presented for this model and are shown to be tight for the following sub-classes: i) weak, ii) strong (mix of strong but not very strong (SnVS) and very strong (VS)), iii) ergodic very strong (mix of strong and weak), and (iv) a sub-class of mixed interference (mix of SnVS and weak). Each sub-class is uniquely defined by the fading statistics.
0904.1989
Personalized Recommendation via Integrated Diffusion on User-Item-Tag Tripartite Graphs
cs.IR
Personalized recommender systems are confronting great challenges of accuracy, diversification and novelty, especially when the data set is sparse and lacks accessorial information, such as user profiles, item attributes and explicit ratings. Collaborative tags contain rich information about personalized preferences and item contents, and are therefore potential to help in providing better recommendations. In this paper, we propose a recommendation algorithm based on an integrated diffusion on user-item-tag tripartite graphs. We use three benchmark data sets, Del.icio.us, MovieLens and BibSonomy, to evaluate our algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate that the usage of tag information can significantly improve accuracy, diversification and novelty of recommendations.
0904.2012
Simplicial Databases
cs.DB cs.IR
In this paper, we define a category DB, called the category of simplicial databases, whose objects are databases and whose morphisms are data-preserving maps. Along the way we give a precise formulation of the category of relational databases, and prove that it is a full subcategory of DB. We also prove that limits and colimits always exist in DB and that they correspond to queries such as select, join, union, etc. One feature of our construction is that the schema of a simplicial database has a natural geometric structure: an underlying simplicial set. The geometry of a schema is a way of keeping track of relationships between distinct tables, and can be thought of as a system of foreign keys. The shape of a schema is generally intuitive (e.g. the schema for round-trip flights is a circle consisting of an edge from $A$ to $B$ and an edge from $B$ to $A$), and as such, may be useful for analyzing data. We give several applications of our approach, as well as possible advantages it has over the relational model. We also indicate some directions for further research.
0904.2022
Absdet-Pseudo-Codewords and Perm-Pseudo-Codewords: Definitions and Properties
cs.IT cs.DM math.IT
The linear-programming decoding performance of a binary linear code crucially depends on the structure of the fundamental cone of the parity-check matrix that describes the code. Towards a better understanding of fundamental cones and the vectors therein, we introduce the notion of absdet-pseudo-codewords and perm-pseudo-codewords: we give the definitions, we discuss some simple examples, and we list some of their properties.
0904.2037
Boosting through Optimization of Margin Distributions
cs.LG cs.CV
Boosting has attracted much research attention in the past decade. The success of boosting algorithms may be interpreted in terms of the margin theory. Recently it has been shown that generalization error of classifiers can be obtained by explicitly taking the margin distribution of the training data into account. Most of the current boosting algorithms in practice usually optimizes a convex loss function and do not make use of the margin distribution. In this work we design a new boosting algorithm, termed margin-distribution boosting (MDBoost), which directly maximizes the average margin and minimizes the margin variance simultaneously. This way the margin distribution is optimized. A totally-corrective optimization algorithm based on column generation is proposed to implement MDBoost. Experiments on UCI datasets show that MDBoost outperforms AdaBoost and LPBoost in most cases.
0904.2051
Joint-sparse recovery from multiple measurements
cs.IT math.IT
The joint-sparse recovery problem aims to recover, from sets of compressed measurements, unknown sparse matrices with nonzero entries restricted to a subset of rows. This is an extension of the single-measurement-vector (SMV) problem widely studied in compressed sensing. We analyze the recovery properties for two types of recovery algorithms. First, we show that recovery using sum-of-norm minimization cannot exceed the uniform recovery rate of sequential SMV using $\ell_1$ minimization, and that there are problems that can be solved with one approach but not with the other. Second, we analyze the performance of the ReMBo algorithm [M. Mishali and Y. Eldar, IEEE Trans. Sig. Proc., 56 (2008)] in combination with $\ell_1$ minimization, and show how recovery improves as more measurements are taken. From this analysis it follows that having more measurements than number of nonzero rows does not improve the potential theoretical recovery rate.
0904.2096
A Distributed Software Architecture for Collaborative Teleoperation based on a VR Platform and Web Application Interoperability
cs.HC cs.GR cs.MM cs.RO
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can provide to a Human Operator (HO) a real help to complete complex tasks, such as robot teleoperation and cooperative teleassistance. Using appropriate augmentations, the HO can interact faster, safer and easier with the remote real world. In this paper, we present an extension of an existing distributed software and network architecture for collaborative teleoperation based on networked human-scaled mixed reality and mobile platform. The first teleoperation system was composed by a VR application and a Web application. However the 2 systems cannot be used together and it is impossible to control a distant robot simultaneously. Our goal is to update the teleoperation system to permit a heterogeneous collaborative teleoperation between the 2 platforms. An important feature of this interface is based on different Mobile platforms to control one or many robots.
0904.2160
Inferring Dynamic Bayesian Networks using Frequent Episode Mining
cs.LG
Motivation: Several different threads of research have been proposed for modeling and mining temporal data. On the one hand, approaches such as dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) provide a formal probabilistic basis to model relationships between time-indexed random variables but these models are intractable to learn in the general case. On the other, algorithms such as frequent episode mining are scalable to large datasets but do not exhibit the rigorous probabilistic interpretations that are the mainstay of the graphical models literature. Results: We present a unification of these two seemingly diverse threads of research, by demonstrating how dynamic (discrete) Bayesian networks can be inferred from the results of frequent episode mining. This helps bridge the modeling emphasis of the former with the counting emphasis of the latter. First, we show how, under reasonable assumptions on data characteristics and on influences of random variables, the optimal DBN structure can be computed using a greedy, local, algorithm. Next, we connect the optimality of the DBN structure with the notion of fixed-delay episodes and their counts of distinct occurrences. Finally, to demonstrate the practical feasibility of our approach, we focus on a specific (but broadly applicable) class of networks, called excitatory networks, and show how the search for the optimal DBN structure can be conducted using just information from frequent episodes. Application on datasets gathered from mathematical models of spiking neurons as well as real neuroscience datasets are presented. Availability: Algorithmic implementations, simulator codebases, and datasets are available from our website at http://neural-code.cs.vt.edu/dbn
0904.2237
On Binary Cyclic Codes with Five Nonzero Weights
cs.IT cs.DM math.CO math.IT
Let $q=2^n$, $0\leq k\leq n-1$, $n/\gcd(n,k)$ be odd and $k\neq n/3, 2n/3$. In this paper the value distribution of following exponential sums \[\sum\limits_{x\in \bF_q}(-1)^{\mathrm{Tr}_1^n(\alpha x^{2^{2k}+1}+\beta x^{2^k+1}+\ga x)}\quad(\alpha,\beta,\ga\in \bF_{q})\] is determined. As an application, the weight distribution of the binary cyclic code $\cC$, with parity-check polynomial $h_1(x)h_2(x)h_3(x)$ where $h_1(x)$, $h_2(x)$ and $h_3(x)$ are the minimal polynomials of $\pi^{-1}$, $\pi^{-(2^k+1)}$ and $\pi^{-(2^{2k}+1)}$ respectively for a primitive element $\pi$ of $\bF_q$, is also determined.
0904.2302
A Fundamental Characterization of Stability in Broadcast Queueing Systems
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
Stability with respect to a given scheduling policy has become an important issue for wireless communication systems, but it is hard to prove in particular scenarios. In this paper two simple conditions for stability in broadcast channels are derived, which are easy to check. Heuristically, the conditions imply that if the queue length in the system becomes large, the rate allocation is always the solution of a weighted sum rate maximization problem. Furthermore, the change of the weight factors between two time slots becomes smaller and the weight factors of the users, whose queues are bounded while the other queues expand, tend to zero. Then it is shown that for any mean arrival rate vector inside the ergodic achievable rate region the system is stable in the strong sense when the given scheduling policy complies with the conditions. In this case the policy is so-called throughput-optimal. Subsequently, some results on the necessity of the presented conditions are provided. Finally, in several application examples it is shown that the results in the paper provide a convenient way to verify the throughput-optimal policies.
0904.2311
Source Coding with a Side Information "Vending Machine"
cs.IT math.IT
We study source coding in the presence of side information, when the system can take actions that affect the availability, quality, or nature of the side information. We begin by extending the Wyner-Ziv problem of source coding with decoder side information to the case where the decoder is allowed to choose actions affecting the side information. We then consider the setting where actions are taken by the encoder, based on its observation of the source. Actions may have costs that are commensurate with the quality of the side information they yield, and an overall per-symbol cost constraint may be imposed. We characterize the achievable tradeoffs between rate, distortion, and cost in some of these problem settings. Among our findings is the fact that even in the absence of a cost constraint, greedily choosing the action associated with the `best' side information is, in general, sub-optimal. A few examples are worked out.
0904.2320
Why Global Performance is a Poor Metric for Verifying Convergence of Multi-agent Learning
cs.MA cs.LG
Experimental verification has been the method of choice for verifying the stability of a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) algorithm as the number of agents grows and theoretical analysis becomes prohibitively complex. For cooperative agents, where the ultimate goal is to optimize some global metric, the stability is usually verified by observing the evolution of the global performance metric over time. If the global metric improves and eventually stabilizes, it is considered a reasonable verification of the system's stability. The main contribution of this note is establishing the need for better experimental frameworks and measures to assess the stability of large-scale adaptive cooperative systems. We show an experimental case study where the stability of the global performance metric can be rather deceiving, hiding an underlying instability in the system that later leads to a significant drop in performance. We then propose an alternative metric that relies on agents' local policies and show, experimentally, that our proposed metric is more effective (than the traditional global performance metric) in exposing the instability of MARL algorithms.
0904.2375
The Zeta Function of a Periodic-Finite-Type Shift
cs.IT math.IT
The class of periodic-finite-type shifts (PFT's) is a class of sofic shifts that strictly includes the class of shifts of finite type (SFT's), and the zeta function of a PFT is a generating function for the number of periodic sequences in the shift. In this paper, we derive a useful formula for the zeta function of a PFT. This formula allows the zeta function of a PFT to be computed more efficiently than the specialization of a formula known for a generic sofic shift
0904.2401
A Combinatorial Study of Linear Deterministic Relay Networks
cs.IT math.IT
In the last few years the so--called "linear deterministic" model of relay channels has gained popularity as a means of studying the flow of information over wireless communication networks, and this approach generalizes the model of wireline networks which is standard in network optimization. There is recent work extending the celebrated max--flow/min--cut theorem to the capacity of a unicast session over a linear deterministic relay network which is modeled by a layered directed graph. This result was first proved by a random coding scheme over large blocks of transmitted signals. We demonstrate the same result with a simple, deterministic, polynomial--time algorithm which takes as input a single transmitted signal instead of a long block of signals. Our capacity-achieving transmission scheme for a two--layer network requires the extension of a one--dimensional Rado--Hall transversal theorem on the independent subsets of rows of a row--partitioned matrix into a two--dimensional variation for block matrices. To generalize our approach to larger networks we use the submodularity of the capacity of a cut for our model and show that our complete transmission scheme can be obtained by solving a linear program over the intersection of two polymatroids. We prove that our transmission scheme can achieve the max-flow/min-cut capacity by applying a theorem of Edmonds about such linear programs. We use standard submodular function minimization techniques as part of our polynomial--time algorithm to construct our capacity-achieving transmission scheme.
0904.2441
Reliable Identification of RFID Tags Using Multiple Independent Reader Sessions
cs.IT math.IT
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are gaining momentum in various applications of logistics, inventory, etc. A generic problem in such systems is to ensure that the RFID readers can reliably read a set of RFID tags, such that the probability of missing tags stays below an acceptable value. A tag may be missing (left unread) due to errors in the communication link towards the reader e.g. due to obstacles in the radio path. The present paper proposes techniques that use multiple reader sessions, during which the system of readers obtains a running estimate of the probability to have at least one tag missing. Based on such an estimate, it is decided whether an additional reader session is required. Two methods are proposed, they rely on the statistical independence of the tag reading errors across different reader sessions, which is a plausible assumption when e.g. each reader session is executed on different readers. The first method uses statistical relationships that are valid when the reader sessions are independent. The second method is obtained by modifying an existing capture-recapture estimator. The results show that, when the reader sessions are independent, the proposed mechanisms provide a good approximation to the probability of missing tags, such that the number of reader sessions made, meets the target specification. If the assumption of independence is violated, the estimators are still useful, but they should be corrected by a margin of additional reader sessions to ensure that the target probability of missing tags is met.
0904.2448
All that Glisters is not Galled
cs.DM cs.CE q-bio.PE
Galled trees, evolutionary networks with isolated reticulation cycles, have appeared under several slightly different definitions in the literature. In this paper we establish the actual relationships between the main four such alternative definitions: namely, the original galled trees, level-1 networks, nested networks with nesting depth 1, and evolutionary networks with arc-disjoint reticulation cycles.
0904.2477
Joint Range of R\'enyi Entropies
cs.IT math.IT math.PR
The exact range of the joined values of several R\'{e}nyi entropies is determined. The method is based on topology with special emphasis on the orientation of the objects studied. Like in the case when only two orders of R\'{e}nyi entropies are studied one can parametrize upper and lower bounds but an explicit formula for a tight upper or lower bound cannot be given.
0904.2482
Good Concatenated Code Ensembles for the Binary Erasure Channel
cs.IT math.IT
In this work, we give good concatenated code ensembles for the binary erasure channel (BEC). In particular, we consider repeat multiple-accumulate (RMA) code ensembles formed by the serial concatenation of a repetition code with multiple accumulators, and the hybrid concatenated code (HCC) ensembles recently introduced by Koller et al. (5th Int. Symp. on Turbo Codes & Rel. Topics, Lausanne, Switzerland) consisting of an outer multiple parallel concatenated code serially concatenated with an inner accumulator. We introduce stopping sets for iterative constituent code oriented decoding using maximum a posteriori erasure correction in the constituent codes. We then analyze the asymptotic stopping set distribution for RMA and HCC ensembles and show that their stopping distance hmin, defined as the size of the smallest nonempty stopping set, asymptotically grows linearly with the block length. Thus, these code ensembles are good for the BEC. It is shown that for RMA code ensembles, contrary to the asymptotic minimum distance dmin, whose growth rate coefficient increases with the number of accumulate codes, the hmin growth rate coefficient diminishes with the number of accumulators. We also consider random puncturing of RMA code ensembles and show that for sufficiently high code rates, the asymptotic hmin does not grow linearly with the block length, contrary to the asymptotic dmin, whose growth rate coefficient approaches the Gilbert-Varshamov bound as the rate increases. Finally, we give iterative decoding thresholds for the different code ensembles to compare the convergence properties.
0904.2585
Interference Relay Channels - Part I: Transmission Rates
cs.IT math.IT
We analyze the performance of a system composed of two interfering point-to-point links where the transmitters can exploit a common relay to improve their individual transmission rate. When the relay uses the amplify-and-forward protocol we prove that it is not always optimal (in some sense defined later on) to exploit all the relay transmit power and derive the corresponding optimal amplification factor. For the case of the decode-and-forward protocol, already investigated in [1], we show that this protocol, through the cooperation degree between each transmitter and the relay, is the only one that naturally introduces a game between the transmitters. For the estimate-and-forward protocol, we derive two rate regions for the general case of discrete interference relay channels (IRCs) and specialize these results to obtain the Gaussian case; these regions correspond to two compression schemes at the relay, having different resolution levels. These schemes are compared analytically in some special cases. All the results mentioned are illustrated by simulations, given in this part, and exploited to study power allocation games in multi-band IRCs in the second part of this two-part paper.
0904.2587
Interference Relay Channels - Part II: Power Allocation Games
cs.IT math.IT
In the first part of this paper we have derived achievable transmission rates for the (single-band) interference relay channel (IRC) when the relay implements either the amplify-and-forward, decode-and-forward or estimate-and-forward protocol. Here, we consider wireless networks that can be modeled by a multi-band IRC. We tackle the existence issue of Nash equilibria (NE) in these networks where each information source is assumed to selfishly allocate its power between the available bands in order to maximize its individual transmission rate. Interestingly, it is possible to show that the three power allocation (PA) games (corresponding to the three protocols assumed) under investigation are concave, which guarantees the existence of a pure NE after Rosen [3]. Then, as the relay can also optimize several parameters e.g., its position and transmit power, it is further considered as the leader of a Stackelberg game where the information sources are the followers. Our theoretical analysis is illustrated by simulations giving more insights on the addressed issues.
0904.2595
A Methodology for Learning Players' Styles from Game Records
cs.AI cs.LG
We describe a preliminary investigation into learning a Chess player's style from game records. The method is based on attempting to learn features of a player's individual evaluation function using the method of temporal differences, with the aid of a conventional Chess engine architecture. Some encouraging results were obtained in learning the styles of two recent Chess world champions, and we report on our attempt to use the learnt styles to discriminate between the players from game records by trying to detect who was playing white and who was playing black. We also discuss some limitations of our approach and propose possible directions for future research. The method we have presented may also be applicable to other strategic games, and may even be generalisable to other domains where sequences of agents' actions are recorded.
0904.2623
Exponential Family Graph Matching and Ranking
cs.LG cs.AI
We present a method for learning max-weight matching predictors in bipartite graphs. The method consists of performing maximum a posteriori estimation in exponential families with sufficient statistics that encode permutations and data features. Although inference is in general hard, we show that for one very relevant application - web page ranking - exact inference is efficient. For general model instances, an appropriate sampler is readily available. Contrary to existing max-margin matching models, our approach is statistically consistent and, in addition, experiments with increasing sample sizes indicate superior improvement over such models. We apply the method to graph matching in computer vision as well as to a standard benchmark dataset for learning web page ranking, in which we obtain state-of-the-art results, in particular improving on max-margin variants. The drawback of this method with respect to max-margin alternatives is its runtime for large graphs, which is comparatively high.
0904.2695
Compressive Diffraction Tomography for Weakly Scattering
cs.CE cs.IT math.IT
An appealing requirement from the well-known diffraction tomography (DT) exists for success reconstruction from few-view and limited-angle data. Inspired by the well-known compressive sensing (CS), the accurate super-resolution reconstruction from highly sparse data for the weakly scatters has been investigated in this paper. To realize the compressive data measurement, in particular, to obtain the super-resolution reconstruction with highly sparse data, the compressive system which is realized by surrounding the probed obstacles by the random media has been proposed and empirically studied. Several interesting conclusions have been drawn: (a) if the desired resolution is within the range from to, the K-sparse N-unknowns imaging can be obtained exactly bymeasurements, which is comparable to the required number of measurement by the Gaussian random matrix in the literatures of compressive sensing. (b) With incorporating the random media which is used to enforce the multi-path effect of wave propagation, the resulting measurement matrix is incoherence with wavelet matrix, in other words, when the probed obstacles are sparse with the framework of wavelet, the required number of measurements for successful reconstruction is similar as above. (c) If the expected resolution is lower than, the required number of measurements of proposed compressive system is almost identical to the case of free space. (d) There is also a requirement to make the tradeoff between the imaging resolutions and the number of measurements. In addition, by the introduction of complex Gaussian variable the kind of fast sparse Bayesian algorithm has been slightly modified to deal with the complex-valued optimization with sparse constraints.
0904.2827
Principle of development
cs.AI
Today, science have a powerful tool for the description of reality - the numbers. However, the concept of number was not immediately, lets try to trace the evolution of the concept. The numbers emerged as the need for accurate estimates of the amount in order to permit a comparison of some objects. So if you see to it how many times a day a person uses the numbers and compare, it becomes evident that the comparison is used much more frequently. However, the comparison is not possible without two opposite basic standards. Thus, to introduce the concept of comparison, must have two opposing standards, in turn, the operation of comparison is necessary to introduce the concept of number. Arguably, the scientific description of reality is impossible without the concept of opposites. In this paper analyzes the concept of opposites, as the basis for the introduction of the principle of development.
0904.2861
A simple algorithm for decoding both errors and erasures of Reed-Solomon codes
cs.IT math.IT
A simple algorithm for decoding both errors and erasures of Reed-Solomon codes is described.
0904.2863
Error Scaling Laws for Linear Optimal Estimation from Relative Measurements
cs.IT math.IT
We study the problem of estimating vector-valued variables from noisy "relative" measurements. This problem arises in several sensor network applications. The measurement model can be expressed in terms of a graph, whose nodes correspond to the variables and edges to noisy measurements of the difference between two variables. We take an arbitrary variable as the reference and consider the optimal (minimum variance) linear unbiased estimate of the remaining variables. We investigate how the error in the optimal linear unbiased estimate of a node variable grows with the distance of the node to the reference node. We establish a classification of graphs, namely, dense or sparse in Rd,1<= d <=3, that determines how the linear unbiased optimal estimation error of a node grows with its distance from the reference node. In particular, if a graph is dense in 1,2, or 3D, then a node variable's estimation error is upper bounded by a linear, logarithmic, or bounded function of distance from the reference, respectively. Corresponding lower bounds are obtained if the graph is sparse in 1, 2 and 3D. Our results also show that naive measures of graph density, such as node degree, are inadequate predictors of the estimation error. Being true for the optimal linear unbiased estimate, these scaling laws determine algorithm-independent limits on the estimation accuracy achievable in large graphs.
0904.2921
Inter-Session Network Coding with Strategic Users: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Network Coding
cs.IT math.IT
A common assumption in the existing network coding literature is that the users are cooperative and non-selfish. However, this assumption can be violated in practice. In this paper, we analyze inter-session network coding in a wired network using game theory. We assume selfish users acting strategically to maximize their own utility, leading to a resource allocation game among users. In particular, we study the well-known butterfly network topology where a bottleneck link is shared by several network coding and routing flows. We prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium for a wide range of utility functions. We show that the number of Nash equilibria can be large (even infinite) for certain choices of system parameters. This is in sharp contrast to a similar game setting with traditional packet forwarding where the Nash equilibrium is always unique. We then characterize the worst-case efficiency bounds, i.e., the Price-of-Anarchy (PoA), compared to an optimal and cooperative network design. We show that by using a novel discriminatory pricing scheme which charges encoded and forwarded packets differently, we can improve the PoA. However, regardless of the discriminatory pricing scheme being used, the PoA is still worse than for the case when network coding is not applied. This implies that, although inter-session network coding can improve performance compared to ordinary routing, it is significantly more sensitive to users' strategic behaviour. For example, in a butterfly network where the side links have zero cost, the efficiency can be as low as 25%. If the side links have non-zero cost, then the efficiency can further reduce to only 20%. These results generalize the well-known result of guaranteed 67% worst-case efficiency for traditional packet forwarding networks.
0904.2953
Towards an Intelligent System for Risk Prevention and Management
cs.AI cs.MA
Making a decision in a changeable and dynamic environment is an arduous task owing to the lack of information, their uncertainties and the unawareness of planners about the future evolution of incidents. The use of a decision support system is an efficient solution of this issue. Such a system can help emergency planners and responders to detect possible emergencies, as well as to suggest and evaluate possible courses of action to deal with the emergency. We are interested in our work to the modeling of a monitoring preventive and emergency management system, wherein we stress the generic aspect. In this paper we propose an agent-based architecture of this system and we describe a first step of our approach which is the modeling of information and their representation using a multiagent system.
0904.2954
Agent-Based Decision Support System to Prevent and Manage Risk Situations
cs.AI cs.MA
The topic of risk prevention and emergency response has become a key social and political concern. One approach to address this challenge is to develop Decision Support Systems (DSS) that can help emergency planners and responders to detect emergencies, as well as to suggest possible course of actions to deal with the emergency. Our research work comes in this framework and aims to develop a DSS that must be generic as much as possible and independent from the case study.
0904.3060
An efficient quantum search engine on unsorted database
cs.DB cs.DS
We consider the problem of finding one or more desired items out of an unsorted database. Patel has shown that if the database permits quantum queries, then mere digitization is sufficient for efficient search for one desired item. The algorithm, called factorized quantum search algorithm, presented by him can locate the desired item in an unsorted database using $O(log_{4}N)$ queries to factorized oracles. But the algorithm requires that all the property values must be distinct from each other. In this paper, we discuss how to make a database satisfy the requirements, and present a quantum search engine based on the algorithm. Our goal is achieved by introducing auxiliary files for the property values that are not distinct, and converting every complex query request into a sequence of calls to factorized quantum search algorithm. The query complexity of our algorithm is $O(P*Q*M*log_{4}N)$, where P is the number of the potential simple query requests in the complex query request, Q is the maximum number of calls to the factorized quantum search algorithm of the simple queries, M is the number of the auxiliary files for the property on which our algorithm are searching for desired items. This implies that to manage an unsorted database on an actual quantum computer is possible and efficient.
0904.3063
Using Dissortative Mating Genetic Algorithms to Track the Extrema of Dynamic Deceptive Functions
cs.NE
Traditional Genetic Algorithms (GAs) mating schemes select individuals for crossover independently of their genotypic or phenotypic similarities. In Nature, this behaviour is known as random mating. However, non-random schemes - in which individuals mate according to their kinship or likeness - are more common in natural systems. Previous studies indicate that, when applied to GAs, negative assortative mating (a specific type of non-random mating, also known as dissortative mating) may improve their performance (on both speed and reliability) in a wide range of problems. Dissortative mating maintains the genetic diversity at a higher level during the run, and that fact is frequently observed as an explanation for dissortative GAs ability to escape local optima traps. Dynamic problems, due to their specificities, demand special care when tuning a GA, because diversity plays an even more crucial role than it does when tackling static ones. This paper investigates the behaviour of dissortative mating GAs, namely the recently proposed Adaptive Dissortative Mating GA (ADMGA), on dynamic trap functions. ADMGA selects parents according to their Hamming distance, via a self-adjustable threshold value. The method, by keeping population diversity during the run, provides an effective means to deal with dynamic problems. Tests conducted with deceptive and nearly deceptive trap functions indicate that ADMGA is able to outperform other GAs, some specifically designed for tracking moving extrema, on a wide range of tests, being particularly effective when speed of change is not very fast. When comparing the algorithm to a previously proposed dissortative GA, results show that performance is equivalent on the majority of the experiments, but ADMGA performs better when solving the hardest instances of the test set.
0904.3148
CRT-Based High Speed Parallel Architecture for Long BCH Encoding
cs.AR cs.IT math.IT
BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghen) error correcting codes ([1]-[2]) are now widely used in communication systems and digital technology. Direct LFSR(linear feedback shifted register)-based encoding of a long BCH code suffers from serial-in and serial-out limitation and large fanout effect of some XOR gates. This makes the LFSR-based encoders of long BCH codes cannot keep up with the data transmission speed in some applications. Several parallel long parallel encoders for long cyclic codes have been proposed in [3]-[8]. The technique for eliminating the large fanout effect by J-unfolding method and some algebraic manipulation was presented in [7] and [8] . In this paper we propose a CRT(Chinese Remainder Theorem)-based parallel architecture for long BCH encoding. Our novel technique can be used to eliminate the fanout bottleneck. The only restriction on the speed of long BCH encoding of our CRT-based architecture is $log_2N$, where $N$ is the length of the BCH code.
0904.3151
Efficient Construction of Neighborhood Graphs by the Multiple Sorting Method
cs.DS cs.LG
Neighborhood graphs are gaining popularity as a concise data representation in machine learning. However, naive graph construction by pairwise distance calculation takes $O(n^2)$ runtime for $n$ data points and this is prohibitively slow for millions of data points. For strings of equal length, the multiple sorting method (Uno, 2008) can construct an $\epsilon$-neighbor graph in $O(n+m)$ time, where $m$ is the number of $\epsilon$-neighbor pairs in the data. To introduce this remarkably efficient algorithm to continuous domains such as images, signals and texts, we employ a random projection method to convert vectors to strings. Theoretical results are presented to elucidate the trade-off between approximation quality and computation time. Empirical results show the efficiency of our method in comparison to fast nearest neighbor alternatives.
0904.3165
Fading Broadcast Channels with State Information at the Receivers
cs.IT math.IT
Despite considerable progress on the information-theoretic broadcast channel, the capacity region of fading broadcast channels with channel state known at the receivers but unknown at the transmitter remains unresolved. We address this subject by introducing a layered erasure broadcast channel model in which each component channel has a state that specifies the received signal levels in an instance of a deterministic binary expansion channel. We find the capacity region of this class of broadcast channels. The capacity achieving strategy assigns each signal level to the user that derives the maximum expected rate from that level. The outer bound is based on a channel enhancement that creates a degraded broadcast channel for which the capacity region is known. This same approach is then used to find inner and outer bounds to the capacity region of fading Gaussian broadcast channels. The achievability scheme employs a superposition of binary inputs. For intermittent AWGN channels and for Rayleigh fading channels, the achievable rates are observed to be with 1-2 bits of the outer bound at high SNR. We also prove that the achievable rate region is within 6.386 bits/s/Hz of the capacity region for all fading AWGN broadcast channels.
0904.3310
FastLMFI: An Efficient Approach for Local Maximal Patterns Propagation and Maximal Patterns Superset Checking
cs.DB cs.AI cs.DS
Maximal frequent patterns superset checking plays an important role in the efficient mining of complete Maximal Frequent Itemsets (MFI) and maximal search space pruning. In this paper we present a new indexing approach, FastLMFI for local maximal frequent patterns (itemset) propagation and maximal patterns superset checking. Experimental results on different sparse and dense datasets show that our work is better than the previous well known progressive focusing technique. We have also integrated our superset checking approach with an existing state of the art maximal itemsets algorithm Mafia, and compare our results with current best maximal itemsets algorithms afopt-max and FP (zhu)-max. Our results outperform afopt-max and FP (zhu)-max on dense (chess and mushroom) datasets on almost all support thresholds, which shows the effectiveness of our approach.
0904.3312
HybridMiner: Mining Maximal Frequent Itemsets Using Hybrid Database Representation Approach
cs.DB cs.AI cs.DS
In this paper we present a novel hybrid (arraybased layout and vertical bitmap layout) database representation approach for mining complete Maximal Frequent Itemset (MFI) on sparse and large datasets. Our work is novel in terms of scalability, item search order and two horizontal and vertical projection techniques. We also present a maximal algorithm using this hybrid database representation approach. Different experimental results on real and sparse benchmark datasets show that our approach is better than previous state of art maximal algorithms.
0904.3316
Ramp: Fast Frequent Itemset Mining with Efficient Bit-Vector Projection Technique
cs.DB cs.AI cs.DS
Mining frequent itemset using bit-vector representation approach is very efficient for dense type datasets, but highly inefficient for sparse datasets due to lack of any efficient bit-vector projection technique. In this paper we present a novel efficient bit-vector projection technique, for sparse and dense datasets. To check the efficiency of our bit-vector projection technique, we present a new frequent itemset mining algorithm Ramp (Real Algorithm for Mining Patterns) build upon our bit-vector projection technique. The performance of the Ramp is compared with the current best (all, maximal and closed) frequent itemset mining algorithms on benchmark datasets. Different experimental results on sparse and dense datasets show that mining frequent itemset using Ramp is faster than the current best algorithms, which show the effectiveness of our bit-vector projection idea. We also present a new local maximal frequent itemsets propagation and maximal itemset superset checking approach FastLMFI, build upon our PBR bit-vector projection technique. Our different computational experiments suggest that itemset maximality checking using FastLMFI is fast and efficient than a previous will known progressive focusing approach.
0904.3319
Fast Algorithms for Mining Interesting Frequent Itemsets without Minimum Support
cs.DB cs.AI cs.DS
Real world datasets are sparse, dirty and contain hundreds of items. In such situations, discovering interesting rules (results) using traditional frequent itemset mining approach by specifying a user defined input support threshold is not appropriate. Since without any domain knowledge, setting support threshold small or large can output nothing or a large number of redundant uninteresting results. Recently a novel approach of mining only N-most/Top-K interesting frequent itemsets has been proposed, which discovers the top N interesting results without specifying any user defined support threshold. However, mining interesting frequent itemsets without minimum support threshold are more costly in terms of itemset search space exploration and processing cost. Thereby, the efficiency of their mining highly depends upon three main factors (1) Database representation approach used for itemset frequency counting, (2) Projection of relevant transactions to lower level nodes of search space and (3) Algorithm implementation technique. Therefore, to improve the efficiency of mining process, in this paper we present two novel algorithms called (N-MostMiner and Top-K-Miner) using the bit-vector representation approach which is very efficient in terms of itemset frequency counting and transactions projection. In addition to this, several efficient implementation techniques of N-MostMiner and Top-K-Miner are also present which we experienced in our implementation. Our experimental results on benchmark datasets suggest that the NMostMiner and Top-K-Miner are very efficient in terms of processing time as compared to current best algorithms BOMO and TFP.
0904.3320
Using Association Rules for Better Treatment of Missing Values
cs.DB cs.AI cs.DS
The quality of training data for knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) and data mining depends upon many factors, but handling missing values is considered to be a crucial factor in overall data quality. Today real world datasets contains missing values due to human, operational error, hardware malfunctioning and many other factors. The quality of knowledge extracted, learning and decision problems depend directly upon the quality of training data. By considering the importance of handling missing values in KDD and data mining tasks, in this paper we propose a novel Hybrid Missing values Imputation Technique (HMiT) using association rules mining and hybrid combination of k-nearest neighbor approach. To check the effectiveness of our HMiT missing values imputation technique, we also perform detail experimental results on real world datasets. Our results suggest that the HMiT technique is not only better in term of accuracy but it also take less processing time as compared to current best missing values imputation technique based on k-nearest neighbor approach, which shows the effectiveness of our missing values imputation technique.
0904.3321
Introducing Partial Matching Approach in Association Rules for Better Treatment of Missing Values
cs.DB cs.AI cs.DS
Handling missing values in training datasets for constructing learning models or extracting useful information is considered to be an important research task in data mining and knowledge discovery in databases. In recent years, lot of techniques are proposed for imputing missing values by considering attribute relationships with missing value observation and other observations of training dataset. The main deficiency of such techniques is that, they depend upon single approach and do not combine multiple approaches, that why they are less accurate. To improve the accuracy of missing values imputation, in this paper we introduce a novel partial matching concept in association rules mining, which shows better results as compared to full matching concept that we described in our previous work. Our imputation technique combines the partial matching concept in association rules with k-nearest neighbor approach. Since this is a hybrid technique, therefore its accuracy is much better than as compared to those techniques which depend upon single approach. To check the efficiency of our technique, we also provide detail experimental results on number of benchmark datasets which show better results as compared to previous approaches.
0904.3340
Lossy Compression in Near-Linear Time via Efficient Random Codebooks and Databases
cs.IT math.IT
The compression-complexity trade-off of lossy compression algorithms that are based on a random codebook or a random database is examined. Motivated, in part, by recent results of Gupta-Verd\'{u}-Weissman (GVW) and their underlying connections with the pattern-matching scheme of Kontoyiannis' lossy Lempel-Ziv algorithm, we introduce a non-universal version of the lossy Lempel-Ziv method (termed LLZ). The optimality of LLZ for memoryless sources is established, and its performance is compared to that of the GVW divide-and-conquer approach. Experimental results indicate that the GVW approach often yields better compression than LLZ, but at the price of much higher memory requirements. To combine the advantages of both, we introduce a hybrid algorithm (HYB) that utilizes both the divide-and-conquer idea of GVW and the single-database structure of LLZ. It is proved that HYB shares with GVW the exact same rate-distortion performance and implementation complexity, while, like LLZ, requiring less memory, by a factor which may become unbounded, depending on the choice or the relevant design parameters. Experimental results are also presented, illustrating the performance of all three methods on data generated by simple discrete memoryless sources. In particular, the HYB algorithm is shown to outperform existing schemes for the compression of some simple discrete sources with respect to the Hamming distortion criterion.
0904.3351
A Subsequence-Histogram Method for Generic Vocabulary Recognition over Deletion Channels
cs.IT cs.DS math.IT stat.AP
We consider the problem of recognizing a vocabulary--a collection of words (sequences) over a finite alphabet--from a potential subsequence of one of its words. We assume the given subsequence is received through a deletion channel as a result of transmission of a random word from one of the two generic underlying vocabularies. An exact maximum a posterior (MAP) solution for this problem counts the number of ways a given subsequence can be derived from particular subsets of candidate vocabularies, requiring exponential time or space. We present a polynomial approximation algorithm for this problem. The algorithm makes no prior assumption about the rules and patterns governing the structure of vocabularies. Instead, through off-line processing of vocabularies, it extracts data regarding regularity patterns in the subsequences of each vocabulary. In the recognition phase, the algorithm just uses this data, called subsequence-histogram, to decide in favor of one of the vocabularies. We provide examples to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm and show that it can achieve the same performance as MAP in some situations. Potential applications include bioinformatics, storage systems, and search engines.
0904.3352
Optimistic Initialization and Greediness Lead to Polynomial Time Learning in Factored MDPs - Extended Version
cs.AI cs.LG
In this paper we propose an algorithm for polynomial-time reinforcement learning in factored Markov decision processes (FMDPs). The factored optimistic initial model (FOIM) algorithm, maintains an empirical model of the FMDP in a conventional way, and always follows a greedy policy with respect to its model. The only trick of the algorithm is that the model is initialized optimistically. We prove that with suitable initialization (i) FOIM converges to the fixed point of approximate value iteration (AVI); (ii) the number of steps when the agent makes non-near-optimal decisions (with respect to the solution of AVI) is polynomial in all relevant quantities; (iii) the per-step costs of the algorithm are also polynomial. To our best knowledge, FOIM is the first algorithm with these properties. This extended version contains the rigorous proofs of the main theorem. A version of this paper appeared in ICML'09.
0904.3356
A method for Hedging in continuous time
cs.IT cs.AI math.IT math.PR
We present a method for hedging in continuous time.
0904.3444
Comment to "Coverage by Randomly Deployed Wireless Sensor Networks"
cs.IT math.IT
It is a correction paper on "P.J. Wan and C.W. Yi, "Coverage by Randomly Deployed Wireless Sensor Networks", IEEE Transaction On Information Theory, vol.52, No.6, June 2006." In the above paper, Lemma (4), on page 2659 play the key role for deriving the main results in the paper. The statement as well as the proof of Lemma (4), page $2659,$ is not correct. We have given the correct version of Lemma. This change in Lemma leads a drastic change in all the result derived in the above paper.
0904.3469
Toggling operators in computability logic
cs.LO cs.AI math.LO
Computability logic (CL) (see http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~giorgi/cl.html ) is a research program for redeveloping logic as a formal theory of computability, as opposed to the formal theory of truth which it has more traditionally been. Formulas in CL stand for interactive computational problems, seen as games between a machine and its environment; logical operators represent operations on such entities; and "truth" is understood as existence of an effective solution. The formalism of CL is open-ended, and may undergo series of extensions as the studies of the subject advance. So far three -- parallel, sequential and choice -- sorts of conjunction and disjunction have been studied. The present paper adds one more natural kind to this collection, termed toggling. The toggling operations can be characterized as lenient versions of choice operations where choices are retractable, being allowed to be reconsidered any finite number of times. This way, they model trial-and-error style decision steps in interactive computation. The main technical result of this paper is constructing a sound and complete axiomatization for the propositional fragment of computability logic whose vocabulary, together with negation, includes all four -- parallel, toggling, sequential and choice -- kinds of conjunction and disjunction. Along with toggling conjunction and disjunction, the paper also introduces the toggling versions of quantifiers and recurrence operations.
0904.3501
Incentive Compatible Budget Elicitation in Multi-unit Auctions
cs.GT cs.MA
In this paper, we consider the problem of designing incentive compatible auctions for multiple (homogeneous) units of a good, when bidders have private valuations and private budget constraints. When only the valuations are private and the budgets are public, Dobzinski {\em et al} show that the {\em adaptive clinching} auction is the unique incentive-compatible auction achieving Pareto-optimality. They further show thatthere is no deterministic Pareto-optimal auction with private budgets. Our main contribution is to show the following Budget Monotonicity property of this auction: When there is only one infinitely divisible good, a bidder cannot improve her utility by reporting a budget smaller than the truth. This implies that a randomized modification to the adaptive clinching auction is incentive compatible and Pareto-optimal with private budgets. The Budget Monotonicity property also implies other improved results in this context. For revenue maximization, the same auction improves the best-known competitive ratio due to Abrams by a factor of 4, and asymptotically approaches the performance of the optimal single-price auction. Finally, we consider the problem of revenue maximization (or social welfare) in a Bayesian setting. We allow the bidders have public size constraints (on the amount of good they are willing to buy) in addition to private budget constraints. We show a simple poly-time computable 5.83-approximation to the optimal Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism, that is implementable in dominant strategies. Our technique again crucially needs the ability to prevent bidders from over-reporting budgets via randomization.
0904.3612
Variations of the Turing Test in the Age of Internet and Virtual Reality
cs.AI cs.HC
Inspired by Hofstadter's Coffee-House Conversation (1982) and by the science fiction short story SAM by Schattschneider (1988), we propose and discuss criteria for non-mechanical intelligence. Firstly, we emphasize the practical need for such tests in view of massively multiuser online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and virtual reality systems like Second Life. Secondly, we demonstrate Second Life as a useful framework for implementing (some iterations of) that test.
0904.3642
Direction-of-Arrival Estimation for Temporally Correlated Narrowband Signals
cs.IT math.IT
signal direction-of-arrival estimation using an array of sensors has been the subject of intensive research and development during the last two decades. Efforts have been directed to both, better solutions for the general data model and to develop more realistic models. So far, many authors have assumed the data to be iid samples of a multivariate statistical model. Although this assumption reduces the complexity of the model, it may not be true in certain situations where signals show temporal correlation. Some results are available on the temporally correlated signal model in the literature. The temporally correlated stochastic Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) has been calculated and an instrumental variable-based method called IV-SSF is introduced. Also, it has been shown that temporally correlated CRB is lower bounded by the deterministic CRB. In this paper, we show that temporally correlated CRB is also upper bounded by the stochastic iid CRB. We investigate the effect of temporal correlation of the signals on the best achievable performance. We also show that the IV-SSF method is not efficient and based on an analysis of the CRB, propose a variation in the method which boosts its performance. Simulation results show the improved performance of the proposed method in terms of lower bias and error variance.
0904.3650
The use of invariant moments in hand-written character recognition
cs.NE
The goal of this paper is to present the implementation of a Radial Basis Function neural network with built-in knowledge to recognize hand-written characters. The neural network includes in its architecture gates controlled by an attraction/repulsion system of coefficients. These coefficients are derived from a preprocessing stage which groups the characters according to their ascendant, central, or descendent components. The neural network is trained using data from invariant moment functions. Results are compared with those obtained using a K nearest neighbor method on the same moment data.
0904.3664
Introduction to Machine Learning: Class Notes 67577
cs.LG
Introduction to Machine learning covering Statistical Inference (Bayes, EM, ML/MaxEnt duality), algebraic and spectral methods (PCA, LDA, CCA, Clustering), and PAC learning (the Formal model, VC dimension, Double Sampling theorem).
0904.3667
Considerations upon the Machine Learning Technologies
cs.LG cs.AI
Artificial intelligence offers superior techniques and methods by which problems from diverse domains may find an optimal solution. The Machine Learning technologies refer to the domain of artificial intelligence aiming to develop the techniques allowing the computers to "learn". Some systems based on Machine Learning technologies tend to eliminate the necessity of the human intelligence while the others adopt a man-machine collaborative approach.
0904.3669
Collaborative systems and multiagent systems
cs.MA
This paper presents some basic elements regarding the domain of the collaborative systems, a domain of maximum actuality and also the multiagent systems, developed as a result of a sound study on the one-agent systems.
0904.3701
Semantic Social Network Analysis
cs.AI
Social Network Analysis (SNA) tries to understand and exploit the key features of social networks in order to manage their life cycle and predict their evolution. Increasingly popular web 2.0 sites are forming huge social network. Classical methods from social network analysis (SNA) have been applied to such online networks. In this paper, we propose leveraging semantic web technologies to merge and exploit the best features of each domain. We present how to facilitate and enhance the analysis of online social networks, exploiting the power of semantic social network analysis.
0904.3778
Word-Valued Sources: an Ergodic Theorem, an AEP and the Conservation of Entropy
cs.IT math.IT
A word-valued source $\mathbf{Y} = Y_1,Y_2,...$ is discrete random process that is formed by sequentially encoding the symbols of a random process $\mathbf{X} = X_1,X_2,...$ with codewords from a codebook $\mathscr{C}$. These processes appear frequently in information theory (in particular, in the analysis of source-coding algorithms), so it is of interest to give conditions on $\mathbf{X}$ and $\mathscr{C}$ for which $\mathbf{Y}$ will satisfy an ergodic theorem and possess an Asymptotic Equipartition Property (AEP). In this correspondence, we prove the following: (1) if $\mathbf{X}$ is asymptotically mean stationary, then $\mathbf{Y}$ will satisfy a pointwise ergodic theorem and possess an AEP; and, (2) if the codebook $\mathscr{C}$ is prefix-free, then the entropy rate of $\mathbf{Y}$ is equal to the entropy rate of $\mathbf{X}$ normalized by the average codeword length.
0904.3780
Noisy Signal Recovery via Iterative Reweighted L1-Minimization
math.NA cs.IT math.IT
Compressed sensing has shown that it is possible to reconstruct sparse high dimensional signals from few linear measurements. In many cases, the solution can be obtained by solving an L1-minimization problem, and this method is accurate even in the presence of noise. Recent a modified version of this method, reweighted L1-minimization, has been suggested. Although no provable results have yet been attained, empirical studies have suggested the reweighted version outperforms the standard method. Here we analyze the reweighted L1-minimization method in the noisy case, and provide provable results showing an improvement in the error bound over the standard bounds.
0904.3808
Automated Epilepsy Diagnosis Using Interictal Scalp EEG
cs.AI cs.CV
Approximately over 50 million people worldwide suffer from epilepsy. Traditional diagnosis of epilepsy relies on tedious visual screening by highly trained clinicians from lengthy EEG recording that contains the presence of seizure (ictal) activities. Nowadays, there are many automatic systems that can recognize seizure-related EEG signals to help the diagnosis. However, it is very costly and inconvenient to obtain long-term EEG data with seizure activities, especially in areas short of medical resources. We demonstrate in this paper that we can use the interictal scalp EEG data, which is much easier to collect than the ictal data, to automatically diagnose whether a person is epileptic. In our automated EEG recognition system, we extract three classes of features from the EEG data and build Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNNs) fed with these features. We optimize the feature extraction parameters and combine these PNNs through a voting mechanism. As a result, our system achieves an impressive 94.07% accuracy, which is very close to reported human recognition accuracy by experienced medical professionals.
0904.3894
On Capacity Computation for the Two-User Binary Multiple-Access Channel
cs.IT math.IT
This paper deals with the problem of computing the boundary of the capacity region for the memoryless two-user binary-input binary-output multiple-access channel ((2,2;2)-MAC), or equivalently, the computation of input probability distributions maximizing weighted sum-rate. This is equivalent to solving a difficult nonconvex optimization problem. For a restricted class of (2,2;2)-MACs and weight vectors, it is shown that, depending on an ordering property of the channel matrix, the optimal solution is located on the boundary, or the objective function has at most one stationary point in the interior of the domain. For this, the problem is reduced to a pseudoconcave one-dimensional optimization and the single-user problem.
0904.3944
Better Global Polynomial Approximation for Image Rectification
cs.CV cs.RO
When using images to locate objects, there is the problem of correcting for distortion and misalignment in the images. An elegant way of solving this problem is to generate an error correcting function that maps points in an image to their corrected locations. We generate such a function by fitting a polynomial to a set of sample points. The objective is to identify a polynomial that passes "sufficiently close" to these points with "good" approximation of intermediate points. In the past, it has been difficult to achieve good global polynomial approximation using only sample points. We report on the development of a global polynomial approximation algorithm for solving this problem. Key Words: Polynomial approximation, interpolation, image rectification.
0904.3953
Guarded resolution for answer set programming
cs.AI
We describe a variant of resolution rule of proof and show that it is complete for stable semantics of logic programs. We show applications of this result.
0904.4006
Joint Source-Channel Coding on a Multiple Access Channel with Side Information
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of transmission of several distributed correlated sources over a multiple access channel (MAC) with side information at the sources and the decoder. Source-channel separation does not hold for this channel. Sufficient conditions are provided for transmission of sources with a given distortion. The source and/or the channel could have continuous alphabets (thus Gaussian sources and Gaussian MACs are special cases). Various previous results are obtained as special cases. We also provide several good joint source-channel coding schemes for discrete sources and discrete/continuous alphabet channel.
0904.4041
Content-Based Sub-Image Retrieval with Relevance Feedback
cs.DB cs.IR
The typical content-based image retrieval problem is to find images within a database that are similar to a given query image. This paper presents a solution to a different problem, namely that of content based sub-image retrieval, i.e., finding images from a database that contains another image. Note that this is different from finding a region in a (segmented) image that is similar to another image region given as a query. We present a technique for CBsIR that explores relevance feedback, i.e., the user's input on intermediary results, in order to improve retrieval efficiency. Upon modeling images as a set of overlapping and recursive tiles, we use a tile re-weighting scheme that assigns penalties to each tile of the database images and updates the tile penalties for all relevant images retrieved at each iteration using both the relevant and irrelevant images identified by the user. Each tile is modeled by means of its color content using a compact but very efficient method which can, indirectly, capture some notion of texture as well, despite the fact that only color information is maintained. Performance evaluation on a largely heterogeneous dataset of over 10,000 images shows that the system can achieve a stable average recall value of 70% within the top 20 retrieved (and presented) images after only 5 iterations, with each such iteration taking about 2 seconds on an off-the-shelf desktop computer.
0904.4057
Decentralized Coding Algorithms for Distributed Storage in Wireless Sensor Networks
cs.IT cs.DS cs.NI math.IT
We consider large-scale wireless sensor networks with $n$ nodes, out of which k are in possession, (e.g., have sensed or collected in some other way) k information packets. In the scenarios in which network nodes are vulnerable because of, for example, limited energy or a hostile environment, it is desirable to disseminate the acquired information throughout the network so that each of the n nodes stores one (possibly coded) packet so that the original k source packets can be recovered, locally and in a computationally simple way from any k(1 + \epsilon) nodes for some small \epsilon > 0. We develop decentralized Fountain codes based algorithms to solve this problem. Unlike all previously developed schemes, our algorithms are truly distributed, that is, nodes do not know n, k or connectivity in the network, except in their own neighborhoods, and they do not maintain any routing tables.
0904.4094
On the Upper Bounds of MDS Codes
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
Let $M_{q}(k)$ be the maximum length of MDS codes with parameters $q,k$. In this paper, the properties of $M_{q}(k)$ are studied, and some new upper bounds of $M_{q}(k)$ are obtained. Especially we obtain that $M_{q}(q-1)\leq q+2(q\equiv4(mod 6)), M_{q}(q-2)\leq q+1(q\equiv4(mod 6)), M_{q}(k)\leq q+k-3 (q=36(5s+1), s\in N$ and $ k=6,7).
0904.4174
Denial of service attack in the Internet: agent-based intrusion detection and reaction
cs.NI cs.MA
This paper deals with denial of service attack. Overview of the existing attacks and methods is proposed. Classification scheme is presented for a different denial of service attacks. There is considered agent-based intrusion detection systems architecture. Considered main components and working principles for a systems of such kind.
0904.4283
Opportunistic Spatial Orthogonalization and Its Application in Fading Cognitive Radio Networks
cs.IT math.IT
Opportunistic Spatial Orthogonalization (OSO) is a cognitive radio scheme that allows the existence of secondary users and hence increases the system throughput, even if the primary user occupies all the frequency bands all the time. Notably, this throughput advantage is obtained without sacrificing the performance of the primary user, if the interference margin is carefully chosen. The key idea is to exploit the spatial dimensions to orthogonalize users and hence minimize interference. However, unlike the time and frequency dimensions, there is no universal basis for the set of all multi-dimensional spatial channels, which motivated the development of OSO. On one hand, OSO can be viewed as a multi-user diversity scheme that exploits the channel randomness and independence. On the other hand, OSO can be interpreted as an opportunistic interference alignment scheme, where the interference from multiple secondary users is opportunistically aligned at the direction that is orthogonal to the primary user's signal space. In the case of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels, the OSO scheme can be interpreted as "riding the peaks" over the eigen-channels, and ill-conditioned MIMO channel, which is traditionally viewed as detrimental, is shown to be beneficial with respect to the sum throughput. Throughput advantages are thoroughly studied, both analytically and numerically.
0904.4343
On the Achievability of Interference Alignment in the K-User Constant MIMO Interference Channel
cs.IT math.IT
Interference alignment in the K-user MIMO interference channel with constant channel coefficients is considered. A novel constructive method for finding the interference alignment solution is proposed for the case where the number of transmit antennas equals the number of receive antennas (NT = NR = N), the number of transmitter-receiver pairs equals K = N + 1, and all interference alignment multiplexing gains are one. The core of the method consists of solving an eigenvalue problem that incorporates the channel matrices of all interfering links. This procedure provides insight into the feasibility of signal vector spaces alignment schemes in finite dimensional MIMO interference channels.