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0908.0175
BGP Route Analysis and Management Systems
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an important component in today's IP network infrastructure. As the main routing protocol of the Internet, clear understanding of its dynamics is crucial for configuring, diagnosing and debugging Internet routing problems. Despite the increase in the services that BGP provide such as MPLS VPNs, there is no much progress achieved in automating the BGP management tasks. In this paper we discuss some of the problems encountered by network engineers when managing BGP networks. We also describe some of the open source tools and methods that attempt to resolve these issues. Then we present some of the features that, if implemented, will ease BGP management related tasks.
0908.0221
FPGA-based Controller for a Mobile Robot
cs.RO cs.AR
With application in the robotics and automation, more and more it becomes necessary the development of applications based on methodologies that facilitate future modifications, updates and enhancements in the original projected system. This project presents a conception of mobile robots using rapid prototyping, distributing the several control actions in growing levels of complexity and computing proposal oriented to embed systems implementation. This kind of controller can be tested on different platform representing the mobile robots using reprogrammable logic components (FPGA). This mobile robot will detect obstacle and also be able to control the speed. Different modules will be Actuators, Sensors, wireless transmission. All this modules will be interfaced using FPGA controller. I would like to construct a mechanically simple robot model, which can measure the distance from obstacle with the aid of sensor and accordingly should able to control the speed of motor. I would like to construct a mechanically simple robot model, which can measure the distance from obstacle with the aid of sensor and accordingly should able to control the speed of motor.
0908.0302
Polarization for arbitrary discrete memoryless channels
cs.IT math.IT
Channel polarization, originally proposed for binary-input channels, is generalized to arbitrary discrete memoryless channels. Specifically, it is shown that when the input alphabet size is a prime number, a similar construction to that for the binary case leads to polarization. This method can be extended to channels of composite input alphabet sizes by decomposing such channels into a set of channels with prime input alphabet sizes. It is also shown that all discrete memoryless channels can be polarized by randomized constructions. The introduction of randomness does not change the order of complexity of polar code construction, encoding, and decoding. A previous result on the error probability behavior of polar codes is also extended to the case of arbitrary discrete memoryless channels. The generalization of polarization to channels with arbitrary finite input alphabet sizes leads to polar-coding methods for approaching the true (as opposed to symmetric) channel capacity of arbitrary channels with discrete or continuous input alphabets.
0908.0319
Regret Bounds for Opportunistic Channel Access
stat.ML cs.AI cs.LG cs.NI
We consider the task of opportunistic channel access in a primary system composed of independent Gilbert-Elliot channels where the secondary (or opportunistic) user does not dispose of a priori information regarding the statistical characteristics of the system. It is shown that this problem may be cast into the framework of model-based learning in a specific class of Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) for which we introduce an algorithm aimed at striking an optimal tradeoff between the exploration (or estimation) and exploitation requirements. We provide finite horizon regret bounds for this algorithm as well as a numerical evaluation of its performance in the single channel model as well as in the case of stochastically identical channels.
0908.0358
Outage analysis of Block-Fading Gaussian Interference Channels
cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers the asymptotic behavior of two-source block-fading single-antenna Gaussian interference channels in the high-SNR regime by means of the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff. We consider a general setting where the users and the average channel gains are not restricted to be symmetric. Our results are not just extensions of previous results for symmetric networks, as our setting covers scenarios that are not possible under the symmetric assumption, such as the case of "mixed" interference, i.e., when difference sources have different distances from their intended receivers. We derive upper and lower bounds on the diversity. We show that for a fairly large set of channel parameters the two bounds coincides.
0908.0373
A Reflection on the Structure and Process of the Web of Data
cs.AI cs.DL cs.GL
The Web community has introduced a set of standards and technologies for representing, querying, and manipulating a globally distributed data structure known as the Web of Data. The proponents of the Web of Data envision much of the world's data being interrelated and openly accessible to the general public. This vision is analogous in many ways to the Web of Documents of common knowledge, but instead of making documents and media openly accessible, the focus is on making data openly accessible. In providing data for public use, there has been a stimulated interest in a movement dubbed Open Data. Open Data is analogous in many ways to the Open Source movement. However, instead of focusing on software, Open Data is focused on the legal and licensing issues around publicly exposed data. Together, various technological and legal tools are laying the groundwork for the future of global-scale data management on the Web. As of today, in its early form, the Web of Data hosts a variety of data sets that include encyclopedic facts, drug and protein data, metadata on music, books and scholarly articles, social network representations, geospatial information, and many other types of information. The size and diversity of the Web of Data is a demonstration of the flexibility of the underlying standards and the overall feasibility of the project as a whole. The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the technological underpinnings of the Web of Data as well as some of the hurdles that need to be overcome if the Web of Data is to emerge as the defacto medium for data representation, distribution, and ultimately, processing.
0908.0390
Byzantine Convergence in Robots Networks: The Price of Asynchrony
cs.DC cs.RO
We study the convergence problem in fully asynchronous, uni-dimensional robot networks that are prone to Byzantine (i.e. malicious) failures. In these settings, oblivious anonymous robots with arbitrary initial positions are required to eventually converge to an a apriori unknown position despite a subset of them exhibiting Byzantine behavior. Our contribution is twofold. We propose a deterministic algorithm that solves the problem in the most generic settings: fully asynchronous robots that operate in the non-atomic CORDA model. Our algorithm provides convergence in 5f+1-sized networks where f is the upper bound on the number of Byzantine robots. Additionally, we prove that 5f+1 is a lower bound whenever robot scheduling is fully asynchronous. This constrasts with previous results in partially synchronous robots networks, where 3f+1 robots are necessary and sufficient.
0908.0411
Data management in systems biology I - Overview and bibliography
cs.DB cs.DS q-bio.OT
Large systems biology projects can encompass several workgroups often located in different countries. An overview about existing data standards in systems biology and the management, storage, exchange and integration of the generated data in large distributed research projects is given, the pros and cons of the different approaches are illustrated from a practical point of view, the existing software - open source as well as commercial - and the relevant literature is extensively overview, so that the reader should be enabled to decide which data management approach is the best suited for his special needs. An emphasis is laid on the use of workflow systems and of TAB-based formats. The data in this format can be viewed and edited easily using spreadsheet programs which are familiar to the working experimental biologists. The use of workflows for the standardized access to data in either own or publicly available databanks and the standardization of operation procedures is presented. The use of ontologies and semantic web technologies for data management will be discussed in a further paper.
0908.0464
Prioritized Repairing and Consistent Query Answering in Relational Databases
cs.DB
A consistent query answer in an inconsistent database is an answer obtained in every (minimal) repair. The repairs are obtained by resolving all conflicts in all possible ways. Often, however, the user is able to provide a preference on how conflicts should be resolved. We investigate here the framework of preferred consistent query answers, in which user preferences are used to narrow down the set of repairs to a set of preferred repairs. We axiomatize desirable properties of preferred repairs. We present three different families of preferred repairs and study their mutual relationships. Finally, we investigate the complexity of preferred repairing and computing preferred consistent query answers.
0908.0497
Network Coding for Multi-Resolution Multicast
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
Multi-resolution codes enable multicast at different rates to different receivers, a setup that is often desirable for graphics or video streaming. We propose a simple, distributed, two-stage message passing algorithm to generate network codes for single-source multicast of multi-resolution codes. The goal of this "pushback algorithm" is to maximize the total rate achieved by all receivers, while guaranteeing decodability of the base layer at each receiver. By conducting pushback and code generation stages, this algorithm takes advantage of inter-layer as well as intra-layer coding. Numerical simulations show that in terms of total rate achieved, the pushback algorithm outperforms routing and intra-layer coding schemes, even with codeword sizes as small as 10 bits. In addition, the performance gap widens as the number of receivers and the number of nodes in the network increases. We also observe that naiive inter-layer coding schemes may perform worse than intra-layer schemes under certain network conditions.
0908.0515
Mobile Anchor Assisted Node Localization for Wireless Sensor Networks
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, a cooperative localization algorithm is proposed that considers the existence of obstacles in mobilityassisted wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this scheme, a mobile anchor (MA) node cooperates with static sensor nodes and moves actively to refine location performance. The localization accuracy of the proposed algorithm can be improved further by changing the transmission range of mobile anchor node. The algorithm takes advantage of cooperation betweenMAs and static sensors while, at the same time, taking into account the relay node availability to make the best use of beacon signals. For achieving high localization accuracy and coverage, a novel convex position estimation algorithm is proposed, which can effectively solve the localization problem when infeasible points occur because of the effects of radio irregularity and obstacles. This method is the only range-free based convex method to solve the localization problem when the feasible set of localization inequalities is empty. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this algorithm.
0908.0516
Still doing evolutionary algorithms with Perl
cs.NE
Algorithm::Evolutionary (A::E from now on) was introduced in 2002, after a talk in YAPC::EU in Munich. 7 years later, A::E is in its 0.67 version (past its "number of the beast" 0.666), and has been used extensively, to the point of being the foundation of much of the (computer) science being done by our research group (and, admittedly, not many others). All is not done, however; now A::E is being integrated with POE so that evolutionary algorithms (EAs) can be combined with all kinds of servers and used in client, servers, and anything in between. In this companion to the talk I will explain what evolutionary algorithms are, what they are being used for, how to do them with Perl (using these or other fine modules found in CPAN) and what evolutionary algorithms can do for Perl at large.
0908.0567
LinkedCT: A Linked Data Space for Clinical Trials
cs.DB cs.CE cs.IR
The Linked Clinical Trials (LinkedCT) project aims at publishing the first open semantic web data source for clinical trials data. The database exposed by LinkedCT is generated by (1) transforming existing data sources of clinical trials into RDF, and (2) discovering semantic links between the records in the trials data and several other data sources. In this paper, we discuss several challenges involved in these two steps and present the methodology used in LinkedCT to overcome these challenges. Our approach for semantic link discovery involves using state-of-the-art approximate string matching techniques combined with ontology-based semantic matching of the records, all performed in a declarative and easy-to-use framework. We present an evaluation of the performance of our proposed techniques in several link discovery scenarios in LinkedCT.
0908.0570
The Infinite Hierarchical Factor Regression Model
cs.LG stat.ML
We propose a nonparametric Bayesian factor regression model that accounts for uncertainty in the number of factors, and the relationship between factors. To accomplish this, we propose a sparse variant of the Indian Buffet Process and couple this with a hierarchical model over factors, based on Kingman's coalescent. We apply this model to two problems (factor analysis and factor regression) in gene-expression data analysis.
0908.0572
Streamed Learning: One-Pass SVMs
cs.LG stat.ML
We present a streaming model for large-scale classification (in the context of $\ell_2$-SVM) by leveraging connections between learning and computational geometry. The streaming model imposes the constraint that only a single pass over the data is allowed. The $\ell_2$-SVM is known to have an equivalent formulation in terms of the minimum enclosing ball (MEB) problem, and an efficient algorithm based on the idea of \emph{core sets} exists (Core Vector Machine, CVM). CVM learns a $(1+\varepsilon)$-approximate MEB for a set of points and yields an approximate solution to corresponding SVM instance. However CVM works in batch mode requiring multiple passes over the data. This paper presents a single-pass SVM which is based on the minimum enclosing ball of streaming data. We show that the MEB updates for the streaming case can be easily adapted to learn the SVM weight vector in a way similar to using online stochastic gradient updates. Our algorithm performs polylogarithmic computation at each example, and requires very small and constant storage. Experimental results show that, even in such restrictive settings, we can learn efficiently in just one pass and get accuracies comparable to other state-of-the-art SVM solvers (batch and online). We also give an analysis of the algorithm, and discuss some open issues and possible extensions.
0908.0583
Proceedings of 1st International Workshop on Collaborative Information Seeking
cs.IR cs.HC
The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers interested in various aspects of small-team collaborative search to share ideas, to stimulate research in the area, and to increase the visibility of this emerging area. We expect to identify promising directions for further exploration and to establish collaborative links among research groups. The workshop took place on June 20, 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, in conjunction with the JCDL 2008 conference. The workshop was organized around three themes: practices, models, and evaluation. We started with a discussion (still ongoing) about terminology, about how to situate our work in the existing research space. We also wanted to motivate our modeling and design discussions with real-world examples of collaboration. We discussed examples from the healthcare domain, students, faculty members, the military, and businesses such as pharmaceutical companies that conduct research. We discussed several models of collaborative information seeking, including sense-making, communication, and information seeking theory based on Marcia Bates' Berrypicking theory. Finally, presenters described several systems that implement various aspects of collaboration, including using search paths, simulations of user behavior to model system performance, and characterizing properties of groups that lead to more effective collaboration.
0908.0586
Understanding Groups' Properties as a Means of Improving Collaborative Search Systems
cs.IR cs.HC
Understanding the similar properties of people involved in group search sessions has the potential to significantly improve collaborative search systems; such systems could be enhanced by information retrieval algorithms and user interface modifications that take advantage of important properties, for example by re-ordering search results using information from group members' combined user profiles. Understanding what makes group members similar can also assist with the identification of groups, which can be valuable for connecting users with others with whom they might undertake a collaborative search. In this workshop paper, we describe our current research efforts towards studying the properties of a variety of group types. We discuss properties of groups that may be relevant to designers of collaborative search systems, and propose ways in which understanding such properties could influence the design of interfaces and algorithms for collaborative Web search.
0908.0595
Towards a Model of Understanding Social Search
cs.IR cs.HC
Search engine researchers typically depict search as the solitary activity of an individual searcher. In contrast, results from our critical-incident survey of 150 users on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service suggest that social interactions play an important role throughout the search process. Our main contribution is that we have integrated models from previous work in sensemaking and information seeking behavior to present a canonical social model of user activities before, during, and after search, suggesting where in the search process even implicitly shared information may be valuable to individual searchers.
0908.0619
Deterministic Construction of Compressed Sensing Matrices using BCH Codes
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we introduce deterministic $m\times n$ RIP fulfilling $\pm 1$ matrices of order $k$ such that $\frac{\log m}{\log k}\approx \frac{\log(\log_2 n)}{\log(\log_2 k)}$. The columns of these matrices are binary BCH code vectors that their zeros are replaced with -1 (excluding the normalization factor). The samples obtained by these matrices can be easily converted to the original sparse signal; more precisely, for the noiseless samples, the simple Matching Pursuit technique, even with less than the common computational complexity, exactly reconstructs the sparse signal. In addition, using Devore's binary matrices, we expand the binary scheme to matrices with $\{0,1,-1\}$ elements.
0908.0660
A Short Note on Compressed Sensing with Partially Known Signal Support
cs.IT math.IT
This short note studies a variation of the Compressed Sensing paradigm introduced recently by Vaswani et al., i.e. the recovery of sparse signals from a certain number of linear measurements when the signal support is partially known. The reconstruction method is based on a convex minimization program coined "innovative Basis Pursuit DeNoise" (or iBPDN). Under the common $\ell_2$-fidelity constraint made on the available measurements, this optimization promotes the ($\ell_1$) sparsity of the candidate signal over the complement of this known part. In particular, this paper extends the results of Vaswani et al. to the cases of compressible signals and noisy measurements. Our proof relies on a small adaption of the results of Candes in 2008 for characterizing the stability of the Basis Pursuit DeNoise (BPDN) program. We emphasize also an interesting link between our method and the recent work of Davenport et al. on the $\delta$-stable embeddings and the "cancel-then-recover" strategy applied to our problem. For both approaches, reconstructions are indeed stabilized when the sensing matrix respects the Restricted Isometry Property for the same sparsity order. We conclude by sketching an easy numerical method relying on monotone operator splitting and proximal methods that iteratively solves iBPDN.
0908.0703
Evaluating Collaborative Search Interfaces with Information Seeking Theory
cs.IR cs.HC
Despite the many implicit references to the social aspects of search within Information Seeking and Retrieval research, there has been relatively little work that has specifically investigated the additional requirements for collaborative search software. In this paper we re-assess a recent evaluation framework, designed for individual information seeking experiences, to see a) how it could still be applied to collaborative search software; b) how it could produce additional requirements for collaborative search; and c) how it could be extended in future work to be even more appropriate for collaborative search evaluation. The position held after the assessment is that it can be used to evaluate collaborative search software, while providing new insights into their requirements. Finally, future work will validate the frameworks applicability to collaborative search and investigate roles within collaborative groups as a means to extend the framework.
0908.0704
A Taxonomy of Collaboration in Online Information Seeking
cs.IR cs.HC
People can help other people find information in networked information seeking environments. Recently, many such systems and algorithms have proliferated in industry and in academia. Unfortunately, it is difficult to compare the systems in meaningful ways because they often define collaboration in different ways. In this paper, we propose a model of possible kinds of collaboration, and illustrate it with examples from literature. The model contains four dimensions: intent, depth, concurrency and location. This model can be used to classify existing systems and to suggest possible opportunities for design in this space.
0908.0709
Toward Collaborative Information Seeking (CIS)
cs.IR cs.HC
It is natural for humans to collaborate while dealing with complex problems. In this article I consider this process of collaboration in the context of information seeking. The study and discussion presented here are driven by two dissatisfactions: (1) the majority of IR systems today do not facilitate collaboration directly, and (2) the concept of collaboration itself is not well-understood. I begin by probing the notion of collaboration and propose a model that helps us understand the requirements for a successful collaboration. A model of a Collaborative Information Seeking (CIS) environment is then rendered based on an extended model of information seeking.
0908.0744
Performance analysis for sparse support recovery
cs.IT math.IT
The performance of estimating the common support for jointly sparse signals based on their projections onto lower-dimensional space is analyzed. Support recovery is formulated as a multiple-hypothesis testing problem. Both upper and lower bounds on the probability of error are derived for general measurement matrices, by using the Chernoff bound and Fano's inequality, respectively. The upper bound shows that the performance is determined by a quantity measuring the measurement matrix incoherence, while the lower bound reveals the importance of the total measurement gain. The lower bound is applied to derive the minimal number of samples needed for accurate direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation for a sparse representation based algorithm. When applied to Gaussian measurement ensembles, these bounds give necessary and sufficient conditions for a vanishing probability of error for majority realizations of the measurement matrix. Our results offer surprising insights into sparse signal recovery. For example, as far as support recovery is concerned, the well-known bound in Compressive Sensing with the Gaussian measurement matrix is generally not sufficient unless the noise level is low. Our study provides an alternative performance measure, one that is natural and important in practice, for signal recovery in Compressive Sensing and other application areas exploiting signal sparsity.
0908.0753
Algebraic Decoding for Doubly Cyclic Convolutional Codes
cs.IT math.IT math.OC
An iterative decoding algorithm for convolutional codes is presented. It successively processes $N$ consecutive blocks of the received word in order to decode the first block. A bound is presented showing which error configurations can be corrected. The algorithm can be efficiently used on a particular class of convolutional codes, known as doubly cyclic convolutional codes. Due to their highly algebraic structure those codes are well suited for the algorithm and the main step of the procedure can be carried out using Reed-Solomon decoding. Examples illustrate the decoding and a comparison with existing algorithms is being made.
0908.0764
Learning about Potential Users of Collaborative Information Retrieval Systems
cs.IR cs.HC
One of the key components of designing usable and useful collaborative information retrieval systems is to understand the needs of the users of these systems. Our research team has been exploring collaborative information behavior in a variety of organizational settings. Our research goals have been two-fold: First, to develop a conceptual understanding of collaborative information behavior and second, gather requirements for the design of collaborative information retrieval systems. In this paper, we present a brief overview of our fieldwork in a three different organizational settings, discuss our methodology for collecting data on collaborative information behavior, and highlight some lessons that we are learning about potential users of collaborative information retrieval systems in these domains.
0908.0772
Online Learning of Assignments that Maximize Submodular Functions
cs.LG cs.DS
Which ads should we display in sponsored search in order to maximize our revenue? How should we dynamically rank information sources to maximize value of information? These applications exhibit strong diminishing returns: Selection of redundant ads and information sources decreases their marginal utility. We show that these and other problems can be formalized as repeatedly selecting an assignment of items to positions to maximize a sequence of monotone submodular functions that arrive one by one. We present an efficient algorithm for this general problem and analyze it in the no-regret model. Our algorithm possesses strong theoretical guarantees, such as a performance ratio that converges to the optimal constant of 1-1/e. We empirically evaluate our algorithm on two real-world online optimization problems on the web: ad allocation with submodular utilities, and dynamically ranking blogs to detect information cascades.
0908.0775
Modeling the emergence of universality in color naming patterns
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.GT cs.MA q-bio.PE
The empirical evidence that human color categorization exhibits some universal patterns beyond superficial discrepancies across different cultures is a major breakthrough in cognitive science. As observed in the World Color Survey (WCS), indeed, any two groups of individuals develop quite different categorization patterns, but some universal properties can be identified by a statistical analysis over a large number of populations. Here, we reproduce the WCS in a numerical model in which different populations develop independently their own categorization systems by playing elementary language games. We find that a simple perceptual constraint shared by all humans, namely the human Just Noticeable Difference (JND), is sufficient to trigger the emergence of universal patterns that unconstrained cultural interaction fails to produce. We test the results of our experiment against real data by performing the same statistical analysis proposed to quantify the universal tendencies shown in the WCS [Kay P and Regier T. (2003) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100: 9085-9089], and obtain an excellent quantitative agreement. This work confirms that synthetic modeling has nowadays reached the maturity to contribute significantly to the ongoing debate in cognitive science.
0908.0794
Quantization Errors of Modulo Sigma-Delta Modulated ARMA Processes
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
In this paper, we study the quantization errors of modulo sigma-delta modulated finite, asymptotically-infinite, infinite causal stable ARMA processes. We prove that the normalized quantization error can be taken as a uniformly distributed white noise for all the cases. Moreover, we find that this nice property is guaranteed by two different mechanisms: the high-enough quantization resolution \cite{Bennett1948}-\cite{WidrowKollar2008} and the asymptotic convergence of quantization errors for some quasi-stationary processes \cite{ChouGray1991}-\cite{LiChenLiZhang2009}, for different cases. But the assumption of the smooth density of the sampled random processes is needed in all the cases.
0908.0833
Top-down Paradigm in Engineering Software Integration
cs.CE cs.SE
The top-down approach of engineering software integration is considered in this parer. A set of advantages of this approach are presented, by examples. All examples are supplied by open source code.
0908.0856
Outage Capacity of Incremental Relaying at Low Signal-to-Noise Ratios
cs.IT math.IT
We present the \epsilon-outage capacity of incremental relaying at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) in a wireless cooperative network with slow Rayleigh fading channels. The relay performs decode-and-forward and repetition coding is employed in the network, which is optimal in the low SNR regime. We derive an expression on the optimal relay location that maximizes the \epsilon-outage capacity. It is shown that this location is independent of the outage probability and SNR but only depends on the channel conditions represented by a path-loss factor. We compare our results to the \epsilon-outage capacity of the cut-set bound and demonstrate that the ratio between the \epsilon-outage capacity of incremental relaying and the cut-set bound lies within 1/\sqrt{2} and 1. Furthermore, we derive lower bounds on the \epsilon-outage capacity for the case of K relays.
0908.0898
On Secrecy Capacity Scaling in Wireless Networks
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
This work studies the achievable secure rate per source-destination pair in wireless networks. First, a path loss model is considered, where the legitimate and eavesdropper nodes are assumed to be placed according to Poisson point processes with intensities $\lambda$ and $\lambda_e$, respectively. It is shown that, as long as $\lambda_e/\lambda=o((\log n)^{-2})$, almost all of the nodes achieve a perfectly secure rate of $\Omega(\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}})$ for the extended and dense network models. Therefore, under these assumptions, securing the network does not entail a loss in the per-node throughput. The achievability argument is based on a novel multi-hop forwarding scheme where randomization is added in every hop to ensure maximal ambiguity at the eavesdropper(s). Secondly, an ergodic fading model with $n$ source-destination pairs and $n_e$ eavesdroppers is considered. Employing the ergodic interference alignment scheme with an appropriate secrecy pre-coding, each user is shown to achieve a constant positive secret rate for sufficiently large $n$. Remarkably, the scheme does not require eavesdropper CSI (only the statistical knowledge is assumed) and the secure throughput per node increases as we add more legitimate users to the network in this setting. Finally, the effect of eavesdropper collusion on the performance of the proposed schemes is characterized.
0908.0912
Evaluation of Coordination Techniques in Synchronous Collaborative Information Retrieval
cs.IR
Traditional Information Retrieval (IR) research has focussed on a single user interaction modality, where a user searches to satisfy an information need. Recent advances in web technologies and computer hardware have enabled multiple users to collaborate on many computer-supported tasks, therefore there is an increasing opportunity to support two or more users searching together at the same time in order to satisfy a shared information need, which we refer to as Synchronous Collaborative Information Retrieval (SCIR). SCIR systems represent a significant paradigmatic shift from traditional IR systems. In order to support effective SCIR, new techniques are required to coordinate users' activities. In addition, the novel domain of SCIR presents challenges for effective evaluations of these systems. In this paper we will propose an effective and re-usable evaluation methodology based on simulating users searching together. We will outline how we have used this evaluation in empirical studies of the effects of different division of labour and sharing of knowledge techniques for SCIR.
0908.0919
Collaborative Search Trails for Video Search
cs.IR
In this paper we present an approach for supporting users in the difficult task of searching for video. We use collaborative feedback mined from the interactions of earlier users of a video search system to help users in their current search tasks. Our objective is to improve the quality of the results that users find, and in doing so also assist users to explore a large and complex information space. It is hoped that this will lead to them considering search options that they may not have considered otherwise. We performed a user centred evaluation. The results of our evaluation indicate that we achieved our goals, the performance of the users in finding relevant video clips was enhanced with our system; users were able to explore the collection of video clips more and users demonstrated a preference for our system that provided recommendations.
0908.0932
The Medical Algorithms Project
cs.HC cs.IR
The Medical Algorithms Project, a web-based resource located at www.medal.org, is the world's largest collection of medical-related spreadsheets, consisting of over 13,500 Excel spreadsheets each encoding a medical algorithm from 45 different areas of medical practice. This free resource is in use worldwide with over 106,000 registered users as of March 1, 2009.
0908.0939
Clustering for Improved Learning in Maze Traversal Problem
cs.LG
The maze traversal problem (finding the shortest distance to the goal from any position in a maze) has been an interesting challenge in computational intelligence. Recent work has shown that the cellular simultaneous recurrent neural network (CSRN) can solve this problem for simple mazes. This thesis focuses on exploiting relevant information about the maze to improve learning and decrease the training time for the CSRN to solve mazes. Appropriate variables are identified to create useful clusters using relevant information. The CSRN was next modified to allow for an additional external input. With this additional input, several methods were tested and results show that clustering the mazes improves the overall learning of the traversal problem for the CSRN.
0908.0982
A multidimensional approach for context-aware recommendation in mobile commerce
cs.CY cs.MA
Context as the dynamic information describing the situation of items and users and affecting the users decision process is essential to be used by recommender systems in mobile commerce to guarantee the quality of recommendation. This paper proposes a novel multidimensional approach for context aware recommendation in mobile commerce. The approach represents users, items, context information and the relationship between them in a multidimensional space. It then determines the usage patterns of each user under different contextual situations and creates a new 2 dimensional recommendation space and does the final recommendation in that space. This paper also represents an evaluation process by implementing the proposed approach in a restaurant food recommendation system considering day, time, weather and companion as the contextual information and comparing the approach with the traditional 2 dimensional one. The results of comparison illustrates that the multidimensional approach increases the recommendation quality.
0908.0984
An Application of Bayesian classification to Interval Encoded Temporal mining with prioritized items
cs.DB cs.LG
In real life, media information has time attributes either implicitly or explicitly known as temporal data. This paper investigates the usefulness of applying Bayesian classification to an interval encoded temporal database with prioritized items. The proposed method performs temporal mining by encoding the database with weighted items which prioritizes the items according to their importance from the user perspective. Naive Bayesian classification helps in making the resulting temporal rules more effective. The proposed priority based temporal mining (PBTM) method added with classification aids in solving problems in a well informed and systematic manner. The experimental results are obtained from the complaints database of the telecommunications system, which shows the feasibility of this method of classification based temporal mining.
0908.0993
Outage Regions and Optimal Power Allocation for Wireless Relay Networks
cs.IT math.IT
We study outage regions for energy-constrained multi-hop and adaptive multi-route networks with an arbitrary number of relay nodes. Optimal power allocation strategies in the sense that outage probability is minimized are derived depending on the distances between the transmit nodes. We further investigate the rate gain of adaptive multi-route and multi-hop over direct transmission. It is shown that a combined strategy of direct transmission and adaptive multi-route outperforms multi-hop for all values of rate R. It can be stated that cooperation strategies are beneficial for low-rate systems where the main goal is a very low outage probability of the network. As the rate is increased, direct transmission becomes more and more attractive.
0908.0994
A Secure Multi-Party Computation Protocol for Malicious Computation Prevention for preserving privacy during Data Mining
cs.CR cs.DB
Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMC) allows parties with similar background to compute results upon their private data, minimizing the threat of disclosure. The exponential increase in sensitive data that needs to be passed upon networked computers and the stupendous growth of internet has precipitated vast opportunities for cooperative computation, where parties come together to facilitate computations and draw out conclusions that are mutually beneficial; at the same time aspiring to keep their private data secure. These computations are generally required to be done between competitors, who are obviously weary of each-others intentions. SMC caters not only to the needs of such parties but also provides plausible solutions to individual organizations for problems like privacy-preserving database query, privacy-preserving scientific computations, privacy-preserving intrusion detection and privacy-preserving data mining. This paper is an extension to a previously proposed protocol Encrytpo_Random, which presented a plain sailing yet effective approach to SMC and also put forward an aptly crafted architecture, whereby such an efficient protocol, involving the parties that have come forward for joint-computations and the third party who undertakes such computations, can be developed. Through this extended work an attempt has been made to further strengthen the existing protocol thus paving the way for a more secure multi-party computational process.
0908.1004
A New Scaling Law on Throughput and Delay Performance of Wireless Mobile Relay Networks over Parallel Fading Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, utilizing the relay buffers, we propose an opportunistic decode-wait-and-forward relay scheme for a point-to-point communication system with a half-duplexing relay network to better exploit the time diversity and relay mobility. For instance, we analyze the asymptotic throughput-delay tradeoffs in a dense relay network for two scenarios: (1) fixed relays with \textit{microscopic fading} channels (multipath channels), and (2) mobile relays with \textit{macroscopic fading} channels (path loss). In the first scenario, the proposed scheme can better exploit the \textit{multi-relay diversity} in the sense that with $K$ fixed relays and a cost of $\mathcal{O}(K)$ average end-to-end packet delay, it could achieve the same optimal asymptotic average throughput as the existing designs (such as regular decode-and-forward relay schemes) with $K^2$ fixed relays. In the second scenario, the proposed scheme achieves the maximum throughput of $\Theta(\log K)$ at a cost of $\mathcal{O}(K/q)$ average end-to-end packet delay, where $0<q\leq {1/2}$ measures the speed of relays' mobility. This system throughput is unattainable for the existing designs with low relay mobility, the proposed relay scheme can exploit the relays' mobility more efficiently.
0908.1071
Optimal Joint Target Detection and Parameter Estimation By MIMO Radar
cs.IT math.IT
We consider multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar systems with widely-spaced antennas. Such antenna configuration facilitates capturing the inherent diversity gain due to independent signal dispersion by the target scatterers. We consider a new MIMO radar framework for detecting a target that lies in an unknown location. This is in contrast with conventional MIMO radars which break the space into small cells and aim at detecting the presence of a target in a specified cell. We treat this problem through offering a novel composite hypothesis testing framework for target detection when (i) one or more parameters of the target are unknown and we are interested in estimating them, and (ii) only a finite number of observations are available. The test offered optimizes a metric which accounts for both detection and estimation accuracies. In this paper as the parameter of interest we focus on the vector of time-delays that the waveforms undergo from being emitted by the transmit antennas until being observed by the receive antennas. The analytical and empirical results establish that for the proposed joint target detection and time-delay estimation framework, MIMO radars exhibit significant gains over phased-array radars for extended targets which consist of multiple independent scatterers. For point targets modeled as single scatterers, however, the detection/estimation accuracies of MIMO and phased-array radars for this specific setup (joint target detection and time-delay estimation) are comparable.
0908.1076
Multi-Agent Model Predictive Control: A Survey
cs.MA
In this report we define characteristic control design elements and show how conventional single-agent MPC implements these. We survey recent literature on multi-agent MPC and discuss how this literature deals with decomposition, problem assignment, and cooperation.
0908.1077
Beamforming and Rate Allocation in MISO Cognitive Radio Networks
cs.IT math.IT
We consider decentralized multi-antenna cognitive radio networks where secondary (cognitive) users are granted simultaneous spectrum access along with license-holding (primary) users. We treat the problem of distributed beamforming and rate allocation for the secondary users such that the minimum weighted secondary rate is maximized. Such an optimization is subject to (1) a limited weighted sum-power budget for the secondary users and (2) guaranteed protection for the primary users in the sense that the interference level imposed on each primary receiver does not exceed a specified level. Based on the decoding method deployed by the secondary receivers, we consider three scenarios for solving this problem. In the first scenario each secondary receiver decodes only its designated transmitter while suppressing the rest as Gaussian interferers (single-user decoding). In the second case each secondary receiver employs the maximum likelihood decoder (MLD) to jointly decode all secondary transmissions, and in the third one each secondary receiver uses the unconstrained group decoder (UGD). By deploying the UGD, each secondary user is allowed to decode any arbitrary subset of users (which contains its designated user) after suppressing or canceling the remaining users.
0908.1116
Enhanced Algorithm for Link to System level Interface Mapping
cs.IT cs.PF math.IT
The current SINR mechanism does not provide the base station (BS) with any knowledge on the frequency selectivity of channel from mobile service station(MSS). This knowledge is important since, contrary to the AWGN channel, in a frequency selective channel there is no longer a 1 to 1 relation between amount of increase in power and amount of improvement in effective SINR 1. Furthermore, the relation is dependent on MCS level. This lack of knowledge in the BS side results in larger fade margins, which translates directly to reduction in capacity. In this paper we propose a enhanced algorithm on the EESM model with weighted beta (\beta) that provides the BS with sufficient knowledge on the channel-dependent relationship between power increase, MCS change and improvement in effective SINR.
0908.1162
STBCs with Reduced Sphere Decoding Complexity for Two-User MIMO-MAC
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) with reduced Sphere Decoding Complexity (SDC) are constructed for two-user Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) fading multiple access channels. In this set-up, both the users employ identical STBCs and the destination performs sphere decoding for the symbols of the two users. First, we identify the positions of the zeros in the $\textbf{R}$ matrix arising out of the Q-R decomposition of the lattice generator such that (i) the worst case SDC (WSDC) and (ii) the average SDC (ASDC) are reduced. Then, a set of necessary and sufficient conditions on the lattice generator is provided such that the $\textbf{R}$ matrix has zeros at the identified positions. Subsequently, explicit constructions of STBCs which results in the reduced ASDC are presented. The rate (in complex symbols per channel use) of the proposed designs is at most $2/N_{t}$ where $N_{t}$ denotes the number of transmit antennas for each user. We also show that the class of STBCs from complex orthogonal designs (other than the Alamouti design) reduce the WSDC but not the ASDC.
0908.1163
Trellis Coded Modulation for Two-User Unequal-Rate Gaussian MAC
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, code pairs based on trellis coded modulation are proposed over PSK signal sets for a two-user Gaussian multiple access channel. In order to provide unique decodability property to the receiver and to maximally enlarge the constellation constrained (CC) capacity region, a relative angle of rotation is introduced between the signal sets. Subsequently, the structure of the \textit{sum alphabet} of two PSK signal sets is exploited to prove that Ungerboeck labelling on the trellis of each user maximizes the guaranteed minimum squared Euclidean distance, $d^{2}_{g, min}$ in the \textit{sum trellis}. Hence, such a labelling scheme can be used systematically to construct trellis code pairs for a two-user GMAC to approach \emph{any rate pair} within the capacity region.
0908.1185
Side-channel attack on labeling CAPTCHAs
cs.CR cs.CV cs.CY cs.HC
We propose a new scheme of attack on the Microsoft's ASIRRA CAPTCHA which represents a significant shortcut to the intended attacking path, as it is not based in any advance in the state of the art on the field of image recognition. After studying the ASIRRA Public Corpus, we conclude that the security margin as stated by their authors seems to be quite optimistic. Then, we analyze which of the studied parameters for the image files seems to disclose the most valuable information for helping in correct classification, arriving at a surprising discovery. This represents a completely new approach to breaking CAPTCHAs that can be applied to many of the currently proposed image-labeling algorithms, and to prove this point we show how to use the very same approach against the HumanAuth CAPTCHA. Lastly, we investigate some measures that could be used to secure the ASIRRA and HumanAuth schemes, but conclude no easy solutions are at hand.
0908.1193
NLP-SIR: A Natural Language Approach for Spreadsheet Information Retrieval
cs.SE cs.HC cs.IR
Spreadsheets are a ubiquitous software tool, used for a wide variety of tasks such as financial modelling, statistical analysis and inventory management. Extracting meaningful information from such data can be a difficult task, especially for novice users unfamiliar with the advanced data processing features of many spreadsheet applications. We believe that through the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques this task can be made considerably easier. This paper introduces NLP-SIR, a Natural language interface for spreadsheet information retrieval. The results of a recent evaluation which compared NLP-SIR with existing Information retrieval tools are also outlined. This evaluation has shown that NLP-SIR is a more effective method of spreadsheet information retrieval.
0908.1208
Real Interference Alignment with Real Numbers
cs.IT math.IT
A novel coding scheme applicable in networks with single antenna nodes is proposed. This scheme converts a single antenna system to an equivalent Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system with fractional dimensions. Interference can be aligned along these dimensions and higher Multiplexing gains can be achieved. Tools from the field of Diophantine approximation in number theory are used to show that the proposed coding scheme in fact mimics the traditional schemes used in MIMO systems where each data stream is sent along a direction and alignment happens when several streams arrive at the same direction. Two types of constellation are proposed for the encoding part, namely the single layer constellation and the multi-layer constellation. Using the single layer constellation, the coding scheme is applied to the two-user $X$ channel and the three-user Gaussian Interference Channel (GIC). In case of the two-user $X$ channel, it is proved that the total Degrees-of-Freedom (DOF), i.e. 4/3, of the channel is achievable almost surely. This is the first example in which it is shown that a time invariant single antenna system does not fall short of achieving its total DOF. Using the multi-layer constellation, the coding scheme is applied to the symmetric three-user GIC. Achievable DOFs are derived for all channel gains. As a function of the channel gain, it is observed that the DOF is everywhere discontinuous.
0908.1222
Distributed Joint Source-Channel Coding for Functions over a Multiple Access Channel
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we provide sufficient conditions for lossy transmission of functions of correlated data over a multiple access channel (MAC). The conditions obtained can be shown as generalized version of Yamamoto's result. We also obtain efficient joint source-channel coding schemes for transmission of discrete and continuous alphabet sources to recover the function values. Keywords: Joint source-channel coding, Graph coloring, Lipschitz functions, Correlated sources.
0908.1223
Joint Source-Channel Coding over a Fading Multiple Access Channel with Partial Channel State Information
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we address the problem of transmission of correlated sources over a fast fading multiple access channel (MAC) with partial channel state information available at both the encoders and the decoder. We provide sufficient conditions for transmission with given distortions. Next these conditions are specialized to a Gaussian MAC (GMAC). We provide the optimal power allocation strategy and compare the strategy with various levels of channel state information. Keywords: Fading MAC, Power allocation, Partial channel state information, Correlated sources.
0908.1264
Adaptive Training for Correlated Fading Channels with Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
We consider data transmission through a time-selective, correlated (first-order Markov) Rayleigh fading channel subject to an average power constraint. The channel is estimated at the receiver with a pilot signal, and the estimate is fed back to the transmitter. The estimate is used for coherent demodulation, and to adapt the data and pilot powers. We explicitly determine the optimal pilot and data power control policies in a continuous-time limit where the channel state evolves as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck diffusion process, and is estimated by a Kalman filter at the receiver. The optimal pilot policy switches between zero and the maximum (peak-constrained) value (``bang-bang'' control), and approximates the optimal discrete-time policy at low Signal-to-Noise Ratios (equivalently, large bandwidths). The switching boundary is defined in terms of the system state (estimated channel mean and associated error variance), and can be explicitly computed. Under the optimal policy, the transmitter conserves power by decreasing the training power when the channel is faded, thereby increasing the data rate. Numerical results show a significant increase in achievable rate due to the adaptive training scheme with feedback, relative to constant (non-adaptive) training, which does not require feedback. The gain is more pronounced at relatively low SNRs and with fast fading. Results are further verified through Monte Carlo simulations.
0908.1273
A General Class of Throughput Optimal Routing Policies in Multi-hop Wireless Networks
math.OC cs.NI cs.SY
This paper considers the problem of throughput optimal routing/scheduling in a multi-hop constrained queueing network with random connectivity whose special case includes opportunistic multi-hop wireless networks and input-queued switch fabrics. The main challenge in the design of throughput optimal routing policies is closely related to identifying appropriate and universal Lyapunov functions with negative expected drift. The few well-known throughput optimal policies in the literature are constructed using simple quadratic or exponential Lyapunov functions of the queue backlogs and as such they seek to balance the queue backlogs across network independent of the topology. By considering a class of continuous, differentiable, and piece-wise quadratic Lyapunov functions, this paper provides a large class of throughput optimal routing policies. The proposed class of Lyapunov functions allow for the routing policy to control the traffic along short paths for a large portion of state-space while ensuring a negative expected drift. This structure enables the design of a large class of routing policies. In particular, and in addition to recovering the throughput optimality of the well known backpressure routing policy, an opportunistic routing policy with congestion diversity is proved to be throughput optimal.
0908.1298
Exposing Pseudoweight Layers in Regular LDPC Code Ensembles
cs.IT math.IT
A solution is presented for the asymptotic growth rate of the AWGN-pseudoweight distribution of regular low-density parity-check (LDPC) code ensembles for a selected graph cover degree M >= 1. The evaluation of the growth rate requires solution of a system of 2M+1 nonlinear equations in 2M+1 unknowns. Simulation results for the pseudoweight distribution of two regular LDPC code ensembles are presented for graph covers of low degree.
0908.1348
The non-existence of a [[13,5,4]] quantum stabilizer code
cs.IT math.IT quant-ph
We solve one of the oldest problems in the theory of quantum stabilizer codes by proving the non-existence of quantum [[13,5,4]]-codes.
0908.1369
Segmentation for radar images based on active contour
cs.CV
We exam various geometric active contour methods for radar image segmentation. Due to special properties of radar images, we propose our new model based on modified Chan-Vese functional. Our method is efficient in separating non-meteorological noises from meteorological images.
0908.1407
Generalized Analysis of a Distributed Energy Efficient Algorithm for Change Detection
cs.IT cs.PF math.IT stat.AP
An energy efficient distributed Change Detection scheme based on Page's CUSUM algorithm was presented in \cite{icassp}. In this paper we consider a nonparametric version of this algorithm. In the algorithm in \cite{icassp}, each sensor runs CUSUM and transmits only when the CUSUM is above some threshold. The transmissions from the sensors are fused at the physical layer. The channel is modeled as a Multiple Access Channel (MAC) corrupted with noise. The fusion center performs another CUSUM to detect the change. In this paper, we generalize the algorithm to also include nonparametric CUSUM and provide a unified analysis.
0908.1453
Training Process Reduction Based On Potential Weights Linear Analysis To Accelarate Back Propagation Network
cs.NE
Learning is the important property of Back Propagation Network (BPN) and finding the suitable weights and thresholds during training in order to improve training time as well as achieve high accuracy. Currently, data pre-processing such as dimension reduction input values and pre-training are the contributing factors in developing efficient techniques for reducing training time with high accuracy and initialization of the weights is the important issue which is random and creates paradox, and leads to low accuracy with high training time. One good data preprocessing technique for accelerating BPN classification is dimension reduction technique but it has problem of missing data. In this paper, we study current pre-training techniques and new preprocessing technique called Potential Weight Linear Analysis (PWLA) which combines normalization, dimension reduction input values and pre-training. In PWLA, the first data preprocessing is performed for generating normalized input values and then applying them by pre-training technique in order to obtain the potential weights. After these phases, dimension of input values matrix will be reduced by using real potential weights. For experiment results XOR problem and three datasets, which are SPECT Heart, SPECTF Heart and Liver disorders (BUPA) will be evaluated. Our results, however, will show that the new technique of PWLA will change BPN to new Supervised Multi Layer Feed Forward Neural Network (SMFFNN) model with high accuracy in one epoch without training cycle. Also PWLA will be able to have power of non linear supervised and unsupervised dimension reduction property for applying by other supervised multi layer feed forward neural network model in future work.
0908.1457
General Scheme for Perfect Quantum Network Coding with Free Classical Communication
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers the problem of efficiently transmitting quantum states through a network. It has been known for some time that without additional assumptions it is impossible to achieve this task perfectly in general -- indeed, it is impossible even for the simple butterfly network. As additional resource we allow free classical communication between any pair of network nodes. It is shown that perfect quantum network coding is achievable in this model whenever classical network coding is possible over the same network when replacing all quantum capacities by classical capacities. More precisely, it is proved that perfect quantum network coding using free classical communication is possible over a network with $k$ source-target pairs if there exists a classical linear (or even vector linear) coding scheme over a finite ring. Our proof is constructive in that we give explicit quantum coding operations for each network node. This paper also gives an upper bound on the number of classical communication required in terms of $k$, the maximal fan-in of any network node, and the size of the network.
0908.1490
Asymmetric Transmitter Cooperation in Multiuser Wireless Networks: Achievable Rate Regions
cs.IT math.IT
In this work, we derive achievable rate regions for the three-user interference channels with asymmetric transmitter cooperation and various decoding capabilities at the receivers. The three-user channel facilitates different ways of message sharing between the transmitters. We introduce two natural ways of extending the concept of unidirectional message sharing from two users to three users - (i) cumulative message sharing and (ii) primary-only message sharing. In addition, we define several cognitive interference channels based on the decoding capability of the receivers. We employ a coding technique, which is a combination of superposition and Gel'fand-Pinsker coding techniques, to derive an achievable rate region for each of the cognitive interference channels. Simulation results, by considering the Gaussian channel case, enables a visual comparison of the two message-sharing schemes considered in this paper. It also provides useful insights into the effect of message-splitting at the transmitters and the decoding capability of the receivers on the achievable rates.
0908.1510
Efficient On-line Schemes for Encoding Individual Sequences with Side Information at the Decoder
cs.IT math.IT
We present adaptive on-line schemes for lossy encoding of individual sequences under the conditions of the Wyner-Ziv (WZ) problem. In the first part of this article, a set of fixed-rate scalar source codes with zero delay is presented. We propose a randomized on-line coding scheme, which achieves asymptotically (and with high probability), the performance of the best source code in the set, uniformly over all source sequences. The scheme uses the same rate and has zero delay. We then present an efficient algorithm for implementing our on-line coding scheme in the case of a relatively small set of encoders. We also present an efficient algorithm for the case of a larger set of encoders with a structure, using the method of the weighted graph and the Weight Pushing Algorithm (WPA). In the second part of this article, we extend our results to the case of variable-rate coding. A set of variable-rate scalar source codes is presented. We generalize the randomized on-line coding scheme, to our case. This time, the performance is measured by the Lagrangian Cost (LC), which is defined as a weighted sum of the distortion and the length of the encoded sequence. We present an efficient algorithm for implementing our on-line variable-rate coding scheme in the case of a relatively small set of encoders. We then consider the special case of lossless variable-rate coding. An on-line scheme which use Huffman codes is presented. We show that this scheme can be implemented efficiently using the same graphic methods from the first part. Combining the results from former sections, we build a generalized efficient algorithm for structured set of variable-rate encoders. The complexity of all the algorithms is no more than linear in the sequence length.
0908.1564
Interfacing network coding with TCP: an implementation
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
In previous work (`Network coding meets TCP') we proposed a new protocol that interfaces network coding with TCP by means of a coding layer between TCP and IP. Unlike the usual batch-based coding schemes, the protocol uses a TCP-compatible sliding window code in combination with new rules for acknowledging bytes to TCP that take into account the network coding operations in the lower layer. The protocol was presented in a theoretical framework and considered only in conjunction with TCP Vegas. In this paper we present a real-world implementation of this protocol that addresses several important practical aspects of incorporating network coding and decoding with TCP's window management mechanism. Further, we work with the more widespread and practical TCP Reno. Our implementation significantly advances the goal of designing a deployable, general, TCP-compatible protocol that provides the benefits of network coding.
0908.1597
A quantum diffusion network
cs.NE
Wong's diffusion network is a stochastic, zero-input Hopfield network with a Gibbs stationary distribution over a bounded, connected continuum. Previously, logarithmic thermal annealing was demonstrated for the diffusion network and digital versions of it were studied and applied to imaging. Recently, "quantum" annealed Markov chains have garnered significant attention because of their improved performance over "pure" thermal annealing. In this note, a joint quantum and thermal version of Wong's diffusion network is described and its convergence properties are studied. Different choices for "auxiliary" functions are discussed, including those of the kinetic type previously associated with quantum annealing.
0908.1669
The Weights in MDS Codes
cs.IT math.IT
The weights in MDS codes of length n and dimension k over the finite field GF(q) are studied. Up to some explicit exceptional cases, the MDS codes with parameters given by the MDS conjecture are shown to contain all k weights in the range n-k+1 to n. The proof uses the covering radius of the dual code
0908.1676
Improved Sparsity Thresholds Through Dictionary Splitting
cs.IT math.IT
Known sparsity thresholds for basis pursuit to deliver the maximally sparse solution of the compressed sensing recovery problem typically depend on the dictionary's coherence. While the coherence is easy to compute, it can lead to rather pessimistic thresholds as it captures only limited information about the dictionary. In this paper, we show that viewing the dictionary as the concatenation of two general sub-dictionaries leads to provably better sparsity thresholds--that are explicit in the coherence parameters of the dictionary and of the individual sub-dictionaries. Equivalently, our results can be interpreted as sparsity thresholds for dictionaries that are unions of two general (i.e., not necessarily orthonormal) sub-dictionaries.
0908.1769
Approximating the Permanent with Belief Propagation
cs.LG cs.IT math.IT
This work describes a method of approximating matrix permanents efficiently using belief propagation. We formulate a probability distribution whose partition function is exactly the permanent, then use Bethe free energy to approximate this partition function. After deriving some speedups to standard belief propagation, the resulting algorithm requires $(n^2)$ time per iteration. Finally, we demonstrate the advantages of using this approximation.
0908.1774
Energy-Efficient Transmission Scheduling with Strict Underflow Constraints
math.OC cs.IT math.IT
We consider a single source transmitting data to one or more receivers/users over a shared wireless channel. Due to random fading, the wireless channel conditions vary with time and from user to user. Each user has a buffer to store received packets before they are drained. At each time step, the source determines how much power to use for transmission to each user. The source's objective is to allocate power in a manner that minimizes an expected cost measure, while satisfying strict buffer underflow constraints and a total power constraint in each slot. The expected cost measure is composed of costs associated with power consumption from transmission and packet holding costs. The primary application motivating this problem is wireless media streaming. For this application, the buffer underflow constraints prevent the user buffers from emptying, so as to maintain playout quality. In the case of a single user with linear power-rate curves, we show that a modified base-stock policy is optimal under the finite horizon, infinite horizon discounted, and infinite horizon average expected cost criteria. For a single user with piecewise-linear convex power-rate curves, we show that a finite generalized base-stock policy is optimal under all three expected cost criteria. We also present the sequences of critical numbers that complete the characterization of the optimal control laws in each of these cases when some additional technical conditions are satisfied. We then analyze the structure of the optimal policy for the case of two users. We conclude with a discussion of methods to identify implementable near-optimal policies for the most general case of M users.
0908.1789
Maximum-Likelihood Sequence Detector for Dynamic Mode High Density Probe Storage
cs.IT math.IT
There is an increasing need for high density data storage devices driven by the increased demand of consumer electronics. In this work, we consider a data storage system that operates by encoding information as topographic profiles on a polymer medium. A cantilever probe with a sharp tip (few nm radius) is used to create and sense the presence of topographic profiles, resulting in a density of few Tb per in.2. The prevalent mode of using the cantilever probe is the static mode that is harsh on the probe and the media. In this article, the high quality factor dynamic mode operation, that is less harsh on the media and the probe, is analyzed. The read operation is modeled as a communication channel which incorporates system memory due to inter-symbol interference and the cantilever state. We demonstrate an appropriate level of abstraction of this complex nanoscale system that obviates the need for an involved physical model. Next, a solution to the maximum likelihood sequence detection problem based on the Viterbi algorithm is devised. Experimental and simulation results demonstrate that the performance of this detector is several orders of magnitude better than the performance of other existing schemes.
0908.1826
An Efficient Greedy Algorithm for Sparse Recovery in Noisy Environment
cs.IT math.IT
Greedy algorithm are in widespread use for sparse recovery because of its efficiency. But some evident flaws exists in most popular greedy algorithms, such as CoSaMP, which includes unreasonable demands on prior knowledge of target signal and excessive sensitivity to random noise. A new greedy algorithm called AMOP is proposed in this paper to overcome these obstacles. Unlike CoSaMP, AMOP can extract necessary information of target signal from sample data adaptively and operate normally with little prior knowledge. The recovery error of AMOP is well controlled when random noise is presented and fades away along with increase of SNR. Moreover, AMOP has good robustness on detailed setting of target signal and less dependence on structure of measurement matrix. The validity of AMOP is verified by theoretical derivation. Extensive simulation experiment is performed to illustrate the advantages of AMOP over CoSaMP in many respects. AMOP is a good candidate of practical greedy algorithm in various applications of Compressed Sensing.
0908.1916
Caching in Wireless Networks
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of delivering content cached in a wireless network of n nodes randomly located on a square of area n. The network performance is described by the n2^n-dimensional caching capacity region of the wireless network. We provide an inner bound on this caching capacity region, and, in the high path-loss regime, a matching (in the scaling sense) outer bound. For large path-loss exponent, this provides an information-theoretic scaling characterization of the entire caching capacity region. The proposed communication scheme achieving the inner bound shows that the problems of cache selection and channel coding can be solved separately without loss of order-optimality. On the other hand, our results show that the common architecture of nearest-neighbor cache selection can be arbitrarily bad, implying that cache selection and load balancing need to be performed jointly.
0908.1919
A dyadic solution of relative pose problems
cs.CV
A hierarchical interval subdivision is shown to lead to a $p$-adic encoding of image data. This allows in the case of the relative pose problem in computer vision and photogrammetry to derive equations having 2-adic numbers as coefficients, and to use Hensel's lifting method to their solution. This method is applied to the linear and non-linear equations coming from eight, seven or five point correspondences. An inherent property of the method is its robustness.
0908.1948
Interference Mitigation Through Limited Receiver Cooperation: Symmetric Case
cs.IT math.IT
Interference is a major issue that limits the performance in wireless networks, and cooperation among receivers can help mitigate interference by forming distributed MIMO systems. The rate at which receivers cooperate, however, is limited in most scenarios. How much interference can one bit of receiver cooperation mitigate? In this paper, we study the two-user Gaussian interference channel with conferencing decoders to answer this question in a simple setting. We characterize the fundamental gain from cooperation: at high SNR, when INR is below 50% of SNR in dB scale, one-bit cooperation per direction buys roughly one-bit gain per user until full receiver cooperation performance is reached, while when INR is between 67% and 200% of SNR in dB scale, one-bit cooperation per direction buys roughly half-bit gain per user. The conclusion is drawn based on the approximate characterization of the symmetric capacity in the symmetric set-up. We propose strategies achieving the symmetric capacity universally to within 3 bits. The strategy consists of two parts: (1) the transmission scheme, where superposition encoding with a simple power split is employed, and (2) the cooperative protocol, where quantize-binning is used for relaying.
0908.1966
Spectral Graph Analysis of Quasi-Cyclic Codes
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper we analyze the bound on the additive white Gaussian noise channel (AWGNC) pseudo-weight of a (c,d)-regular linear block code based on the two largest eigenvalues of H^T H. In particular, we analyze (c,d)-regular quasi-cyclic (QC) codes of length rL described by J x L block parity-check matrices with circulant block entries of size r x r. We proceed by showing how the problem of computing the eigenvalues of the rL x rL matrix H^T H can be reduced to the problem of computing eigenvalues for r matrices of size L x L. We also give a necessary condition for the bound to be attained for a circulant matrix H and show a few classes of cyclic codes satisfying this criterion.
0908.2005
Fault Identification via Non-parametric Belief Propagation
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of identifying a pattern of faults from a set of noisy linear measurements. Unfortunately, maximum a posteriori probability estimation of the fault pattern is computationally intractable. To solve the fault identification problem, we propose a non-parametric belief propagation approach. We show empirically that our belief propagation solver is more accurate than recent state-of-the-art algorithms including interior point methods and semidefinite programming. Our superior performance is explained by the fact that we take into account both the binary nature of the individual faults and the sparsity of the fault pattern arising from their rarity.
0908.2024
On the accessibility of adaptive phenotypes of a bacterial metabolic network
q-bio.PE cs.IT math.IT q-bio.MN q-bio.QM
The mechanisms by which adaptive phenotypes spread within an evolving population after their emergence are understood fairly well. Much less is known about the factors that influence the evolutionary accessibility of such phenotypes, a pre-requisite for their emergence in a population. Here, we investigate the influence of environmental quality on the accessibility of adaptive phenotypes of Escherichia coli's central metabolic network. We used an established flux-balance model of metabolism as the basis for a genotype-phenotype map (GPM). We quantified the effects of seven qualitatively different environments (corresponding to both carbohydrate and gluconeogenic metabolic substrates) on the structure of this GPM. We found that the GPM has a more rugged structure in qualitatively poorer environments, suggesting that adaptive phenotypes could be intrinsically less accessible in such environments. Nevertheless, on average ~74% of the genotype can be altered by neutral drift, in the environment where the GPM is most rugged; this could allow evolving populations to circumvent such ruggedness. Furthermore, we found that the normalized mutual information (NMI) of genotype differences relative to phenotype differences, which measures the GPM's capacity to transmit information about phenotype differences, is positively correlated with (simulation-based) estimates of the accessibility of adaptive phenotypes in different environments. These results are consistent with the predictions of a simple analytic theory and they suggest an intuitive information-theoretic principle for evolutionary adaptation; adaptation could be faster in environments where the GPM has a greater capacity to transmit information about phenotype differences.
0908.2042
Problems in application of LDPC codes to information reconciliation in quantum key distribution protocols
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT quant-ph
The information reconciliation in a quantum key distribution protocol can be studied separately from other steps in the protocol. The problem of information reconciliation can be reduced to that of distributed source coding. Its solution by LDPC codes is reviewed. We list some obstacles preventing the LDPC-based distributed source coding from becoming a more favorable alternative to the Cascade protocol for information reconciliation in quantum key distribution protocols. This exposition does not require knowledge of the quantum theory.
0908.2050
View-based Propagator Derivation
cs.AI
When implementing a propagator for a constraint, one must decide about variants: When implementing min, should one also implement max? Should one implement linear constraints both with unit and non-unit coefficients? Constraint variants are ubiquitous: implementing them requires considerable (if not prohibitive) effort and decreases maintainability, but will deliver better performance than resorting to constraint decomposition. This paper shows how to use views to derive perfect propagator variants. A model for views and derived propagators is introduced. Derived propagators are proved to be indeed perfect in that they inherit essential properties such as correctness and domain and bounds consistency. Techniques for systematically deriving propagators such as transformation, generalization, specialization, and type conversion are developed. The paper introduces an implementation architecture for views that is independent of the underlying constraint programming system. A detailed evaluation of views implemented in Gecode shows that derived propagators are efficient and that views often incur no overhead. Without views, Gecode would either require 180 000 rather than 40 000 lines of propagator code, or would lack many efficient propagator variants. Compared to 8 000 lines of code for views, the reduction in code for propagators yields a 1750% return on investment.
0908.2061
Sequence-Length Requirement of Distance-Based Phylogeny Reconstruction: Breaking the Polynomial Barrier
math.PR cs.CE cs.DS math.ST q-bio.PE q-bio.QM stat.TH
We introduce a new distance-based phylogeny reconstruction technique which provably achieves, at sufficiently short branch lengths, a polylogarithmic sequence-length requirement -- improving significantly over previous polynomial bounds for distance-based methods. The technique is based on an averaging procedure that implicitly reconstructs ancestral sequences. In the same token, we extend previous results on phase transitions in phylogeny reconstruction to general time-reversible models. More precisely, we show that in the so-called Kesten-Stigum zone (roughly, a region of the parameter space where ancestral sequences are well approximated by ``linear combinations'' of the observed sequences) sequences of length $\poly(\log n)$ suffice for reconstruction when branch lengths are discretized. Here $n$ is the number of extant species. Our results challenge, to some extent, the conventional wisdom that estimates of evolutionary distances alone carry significantly less information about phylogenies than full sequence datasets.
0908.2117
Multiuser Modulation Classification Based on Cumulants in AWGN Channel
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper the negative impacts of interference transmitters on automatic modulation classification (AMC) have been discussed. We proposed two approaches for AMC in the presence of interference: single user modulation classification (SUMC) and multiuser modulation classification (MUMC). When the received power of one transmitter is larger than the other transmitters, SUMC approach recognizes the modulation type of that transmitter and other transmitters are treated as interferences. Alternatively when the received powers of all transmitters are close to each other we propose MUMC method to recognize the modulation type of all of the transmitted signals. The features being used to recognize the modulation types of transmitters for both approaches, SUMC and MUMC are higher order cumulants. The super-position property of cumulants for independent random variables is utilized for SUMC and MUMC. We investigated the robustness of our classifier with respect to different powers of the received signals via analytical and simulation results and we have shown the analytical results will be confirmed by simulations. Also we studied the effect of signal synchroni-zation error via simulation results in the both condition for MUMC and SUMC.
0908.2119
Compute-and-Forward: Harnessing Interference through Structured Codes
cs.IT math.IT
Interference is usually viewed as an obstacle to communication in wireless networks. This paper proposes a new strategy, compute-and-forward, that exploits interference to obtain significantly higher rates between users in a network. The key idea is that relays should decode linear functions of transmitted messages according to their observed channel coefficients rather than ignoring the interference as noise. After decoding these linear equations, the relays simply send them towards the destinations, which given enough equations, can recover their desired messages. The underlying codes are based on nested lattices whose algebraic structure ensures that integer combinations of codewords can be decoded reliably. Encoders map messages from a finite field to a lattice and decoders recover equations of lattice points which are then mapped back to equations over the finite field. This scheme is applicable even if the transmitters lack channel state information.
0908.2141
Source and Channel Simulation Using Arbitrary Randomness
cs.IT math.IT
Necessary and sufficient conditions for approximation of a general channel by a general source are proved. For the special case in which the channel input is deterministic, which corresponds to source simulation, we prove a stronger necessary condition. As the approximation criteria, vanishing variational distance between the original and the approximated quantity is used for both of the problems. Both necessary and sufficient conditions for the two problems are based on some individual properties of the sources and the channel and are relatively easy to evaluate. In particular, unlike prior results for this problem, our results do not require solving an optimization problem to test simulatability. The results are illustrated with several non-ergodic examples.
0908.2153
Phased-MIMO Radar: A Tradeoff Between Phased-Array and MIMO Radars
cs.IT math.IT
We propose a new technique for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radar with colocated antennas which we call phased-MIMO radar. The new technique enjoys the advantages of MIMO radar without sacrificing the main advantage of phased-array radar which is the coherent processing gain at the transmitting side. The essence of the proposed technique is to partition the transmitting array into a number of subarrays that are allowed to overlap. Then, each subarray is used to coherently transmit a waveform which is orthogonal to the waveforms transmitted by other subarrays. Coherent processing gain can be achieved by designing a weight vector for each subarray to form a beam towards a certain direction in space. Moreover, the subarrays are combined jointly to form a MIMO radar resulting in higher resolution capabilities. The substantial improvements offered by the proposed phased-MIMO radar technique as compared to previous techniques are demonstrated analytically and by simulations through analysis of the corresponding beampatterns and achievable output signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratios. Both analytical and simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed phased-MIMO radar.
0908.2174
Distributed Source Coding with One Distortion Criterion and Correlated Messages
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, distributed (or multiterminal) source coding with one distortion criterion and correlated messages is considered. This problem can be also called ``Berger-Yeung problem with correlated messages''. It corresponds to the source coding part of the graph-based framework for transmission of a pair of correlated sources over the multiple-access channel (MAC) where one is lossless and the other is lossy. As a result, the achievable rate-distortion region for this problem is provided. It is an information-theoretic characterization of the rate of exponential growth (as a function of the number of source samples) of the size of the bipartite graphs which can represent a pair of correlated sources with satisfying one distortion criterion. A rigorous proof of the achievability and the converse part is given. It is also shown that there exists functional duality between Berger-Yeung problem with correlated messages and semi-deterministic broadcast channel with correlated messages. This means that the optimal encoder-decoder mappings for one problem become the optimal decoder-encoder mappings for the dual problem. In the duality setup, the correlation structure of the messages in the two dual problems, source distortion measure and channel cost measure are also specified.
0908.2198
The Berlekamp-Massey Algorithm and the Euclidean Algorithm: a Closer Link
cs.IT cs.DM math.IT
The two primary decoding algorithms for Reed-Solomon codes are the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm and the Sugiyama et al. adaptation of the Euclidean algorithm, both designed to solve a key equation. In this article an alternative version of the key equation and a new way to use the Euclidean algorithm to solve it are presented, which yield the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm. This results in a new, simpler, and compacter presentation of the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm.
0908.2203
Transmitting an analog Gaussian source over a Gaussian wiretap channel under SNR mismatch
cs.IT math.IT
In this work we study encoding/decoding schemes for the transmission of a discrete time analog Gaussian source over a Gaussian wiretap channel. The intended receiver is assumed to have a certain minimum signal to noise ratio (SNR) and the eavesdropper is assumed to have a strictly lower SNR compared to the intended receiver. For a fixed information leakage to the eavesdropper, we are interested in minimizing the distortion in source reconstruction at the intended receiver, and we propose joint source channel coding (JSCC) schemes for this setup. For a fixed information leakage to the eavesdropper, we also show that the schemes considered give a graceful degradation of distortion with SNR under SNR mismatch, i.e., when the actual channel SNR is observed to be different from the design SNR.
0908.2277
Optimization of Training and Feedback Overhead for Beamforming over Block Fading Channels
cs.IT math.IT
We examine the capacity of beamforming over a single-user, multi-antenna link taking into account the overhead due to channel estimation and limited feedback of channel state information. Multi-input single-output (MISO) and multi-input multi-output (MIMO) channels are considered subject to block Rayleigh fading. Each coherence block contains $L$ symbols, and is spanned by $T$ training symbols, $B$ feedback bits, and the data symbols. The training symbols are used to obtain a Minimum Mean Squared Error estimate of the channel matrix. Given this estimate, the receiver selects a transmit beamforming vector from a codebook containing $2^B$ {\em i.i.d.} random vectors, and sends the corresponding $B$ bits back to the transmitter. We derive bounds on the beamforming capacity for MISO and MIMO channels and characterize the optimal (rate-maximizing) training and feedback overhead ($T$ and $B$) as $L$ and the number of transmit antennas $N_t$ both become large. The optimal $N_t$ is limited by the coherence time, and increases as $L/\log L$. For the MISO channel the optimal $T/L$ and $B/L$ (fractional overhead due to training and feedback) are asymptotically the same, and tend to zero at the rate $1/\log N_t$. For the MIMO channel the optimal feedback overhead $B/L$ tends to zero faster (as $1/\log^2 N_t$).
0908.2282
Real Interference Alignment: Exploiting the Potential of Single Antenna Systems
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, the available spatial Degrees-Of-Freedoms (DOF) in single antenna systems is exploited. A new coding scheme is proposed in which several data streams having fractional multiplexing gains are sent by transmitters and interfering streams are aligned at receivers. Viewed as a field over rational numbers, a received signal has infinite fractional DOFs, allowing simultaneous interference alignment of any finite number of signals at any finite number of receivers. The coding scheme is backed up by a recent result in the field of Diophantine approximation, which states that the convergence part of the Khintchine-Groshev theorem holds for points on non-degenerate manifolds. The proposed coding scheme is proved to be optimal for three communication channels, namely the Gaussian Interference Channel (GIC), the uplink channel in cellular systems, and the $X$ channel. It is proved that the total DOF of the $K$-user GIC is $\frac{K}{2}$ almost surely, i.e. each user enjoys half of its maximum DOF. Having $K$ cells and $M$ users within each cell in a cellular system, the total DOF of the uplink channel is proved to be $\frac{KM}{M+1}$. Finally, the total DOF of the $X$ channel with $K$ transmitters and $M$ receivers is shown to be $\frac{KM}{K+M-1}$.
0908.2328
ARQ Secrecy: From Theory to Practice
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
Inspired by our earlier work on Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) secrecy, we propose a simple, yet efficient, security overlay protocol to existing 802.11 networks. Our work targets networks secured by the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol because of its widespread use and vulnerability to a multitude of security threats. By exploiting the existing ARQ protocol in the 802.11 standard, our proposed opportunistic secrecy scheme is shown to defend against all known passive WEP attacks. Moreover, our implementation on the madwifi-ng driver is used to establish the achievability of a vanishing secrecy outage probability in several realistic scenarios.
0908.2397
Interference Assisted Secret Communication
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
Wireless communication is susceptible to eavesdropping attacks because of its broadcast nature. This paper illustrates how interference can be used to counter eavesdropping and assist secrecy. In particular, a wire-tap channel with a helping interferer (WT-HI) is considered. Here, a transmitter sends a confidential message to its intended receiver in the presence of a passive eavesdropper and with the help of an independent interferer. The interferer, which does not know the confidential message, helps in ensuring the secrecy of the message by sending an independent signal. An achievable secrecy rate and several computable outer bounds on the secrecy capacity of the WT-HI are given for both discrete memoryless and Gaussian channels.
0908.2408
Power Allocation Strategies and Lattice Based Coding schemes for Bi-directional relaying
cs.IT math.IT
We consider a communication system where two transmitters wish to exchange information through a half-duplex relay in the middle. The channels between the transmitters and the relay have asymmetric channel gains. More specifically, the channels are assumed to be synchronized with complex inputs and complex fading coefficients with an average power constraint on the inputs to the channels. The noise at the receivers have the same power spectral density and are assumed to be white and Gaussian. We restrict our attention to transmission schemes where information from the two nodes are simultaneously sent to the relay during a medium access phase followed by a broadcast phase where the relay broadcasts information to both the nodes. An upper bound on the capacity for the two phase protocol under a sum power constraint on the transmit power from all the nodes is obtained as a solution to a convex optimization problem. We show that a scheme using channel inversion with lattice decoding can obtain a rate a small constant 0.09 bits from the upper bound at high signal-to-noise ratios. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme can perform very close to the upper bound.
0908.2440
Reconfiguration of 3D Crystalline Robots Using O(log n) Parallel Moves
cs.CG cs.RO
We consider the theoretical model of Crystalline robots, which have been introduced and prototyped by the robotics community. These robots consist of independently manipulable unit-square atoms that can extend/contract arms on each side and attach/detach from neighbors. These operations suffice to reconfigure between any two given (connected) shapes. The worst-case number of sequential moves required to transform one connected configuration to another is known to be Theta(n). However, in principle, atoms can all move simultaneously. We develop a parallel algorithm for reconfiguration that runs in only O(log n) parallel steps, although the total number of operations increases slightly to Theta(nlogn). The result is the first (theoretically) almost-instantaneous universally reconfigurable robot built from simple units.
0908.2467
Low-complexity non-uniform demand multicast network coding problems
cs.IT math.IT
The non-uniform demand network coding problem is posed as a single-source and multiple-sink network transmission problem where the sinks may have heterogeneous demands. In contrast with multicast problems, non-uniform demand problems are concerned with the amounts of data received by each sink, rather than the specifics of the received data. In this work, we enumerate non-uniform network demand scenarios under which network coding solutions can be found in polynomial time. This is accomplished by relating the demand problem with the graph coloring problem, and then applying results from the strong perfect graph theorem to identify coloring problems which can be solved in polynomial time. This characterization of efficiently-solvable non-uniform demand problems is an important step in understanding such problems, as it allows us to better understand situations under which the NP-complete problem might be tractable.
0908.2494
A Channel Coding Perspective of Collaborative Filtering
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of collaborative filtering from a channel coding perspective. We model the underlying rating matrix as a finite alphabet matrix with block constant structure. The observations are obtained from this underlying matrix through a discrete memoryless channel with a noisy part representing noisy user behavior and an erasure part representing missing data. Moreover, the clusters over which the underlying matrix is constant are {\it unknown}. We establish a sharp threshold result for this model: if the largest cluster size is smaller than $C_1 \log(mn)$ (where the rating matrix is of size $m \times n$), then the underlying matrix cannot be recovered with any estimator, but if the smallest cluster size is larger than $C_2 \log(mn)$, then we show a polynomial time estimator with diminishing probability of error. In the case of uniform cluster size, not only the order of the threshold, but also the constant is identified.
0908.2505
On the Decay of the Determinants of Multiuser MIMO Lattice Codes
cs.IT cs.DM math.IT math.RA
In a recent work, Coronel et al. initiated the study of the relation between the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) performance of a multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) lattice code and the rate of the decay of the determinants of the code matrix as a function of the size of the signal constellation. In this note, we state a simple general upper bound on the decay function and study the promising code proposed by Badr and Belfiore in close detail. We derive a lower bound to its decay function based on a classical theorem due to Liouville. The resulting bound is applicable also to other codes with constructions based on algebraic number theory. Further, we study an example sequence of small determinants within the Badr-Belfiore code and derive a tighter upper bound to its decay function. The upper bound has certain conjectural asymptotic uncertainties, whence we also list the exact bound for several finite data rates.
0908.2529
A Low-Overhead Energy Detection Based Cooperative Sensing Protocol for Cognitive Radio Systems
cs.IT math.IT
Cognitive radio and dynamic spectrum access represent a new paradigm shift in more effective use of limited radio spectrum. One core component behind dynamic spectrum access is the sensing of primary user activity in the shared spectrum. Conventional distributed sensing and centralized decision framework involving multiple sensor nodes is proposed to enhance the sensing performance. However, it is difficult to apply the conventional schemes in reality since the overhead in sensing measurement and sensing reporting as well as in sensing report combining limit the number of sensor nodes that can participate in distributive sensing. In this paper, we shall propose a novel, low overhead and low complexity energy detection based cooperative sensing framework for the cognitive radio systems which addresses the above two issues. The energy detection based cooperative sensing scheme greatly reduces the quiet period overhead (for sensing measurement) as well as sensing reporting overhead of the secondary systems and the power scheduling algorithm dynamically allocate the transmission power of the cooperative sensor nodes based on the channel statistics of the links to the BS as well as the quality of the sensing measurement. In order to obtain design insights, we also derive the asymptotic sensing performance of the proposed cooperative sensing framework based on the mobility model. We show that the false alarm and mis-detection performance of the proposed cooperative sensing framework improve as we increase the number of cooperative sensor nodes.
0908.2578
New method to characterize a machining system: application in turning
cs.CE
Many studies simulates the machining process by using a single degree of freedom spring-mass sytem to model the tool stiffness, or the workpiece stiffness, or the unit tool-workpiece stiffness in modelings 2D. Others impose the tool action, or use more or less complex modelings of the efforts applied by the tool taking account the tool geometry. Thus, all these models remain two-dimensional or sometimes partially three-dimensional. This paper aims at developing an experimental method allowing to determine accurately the real three-dimensional behaviour of a machining system (machine tool, cutting tool, tool-holder and associated system of force metrology six-component dynamometer). In the work-space model of machining, a new experimental procedure is implemented to determine the machining system elastic behaviour. An experimental study of machining system is presented. We propose a machining system static characterization. A decomposition in two distinct blocks of the system "Workpiece-Tool-Machine" is realized. The block Tool and the block Workpiece are studied and characterized separately by matrix stiffness and displacement (three translations and three rotations). The Castigliano's theory allows us to calculate the total stiffness matrix and the total displacement matrix. A stiffness center point and a plan of tool tip static displacement are presented in agreement with the turning machining dynamic model and especially during the self induced vibration. These results are necessary to have a good three-dimensional machining system dynamic characterization.
0908.2588
Wild Card Queries for Searching Resources on the Web
cs.DB cs.IR
We propose a domain-independent framework for searching and retrieving facts and relationships within natural language text sources. In this framework, an extraction task over a text collection is expressed as a query that combines text fragments with wild cards, and the query result is a set of facts in the form of unary, binary and general $n$-ary tuples. A significance of our querying mechanism is that, despite being both simple and declarative, it can be applied to a wide range of extraction tasks. A problem in querying natural language text though is that a user-specified query may not retrieve enough exact matches. Unlike term queries which can be relaxed by removing some of the terms (as is done in search engines), removing terms from a wild card query without ruining its meaning is more challenging. Also, any query expansion has the potential to introduce false positives. In this paper, we address the problem of query expansion, and also analyze a few ranking alternatives to score the results and to remove false positives. We conduct experiments and report an evaluation of the effectiveness of our querying and scoring functions.
0908.2656
Semantic Robot Vision Challenge: Current State and Future Directions
cs.CV cs.RO
The Semantic Robot Vision Competition provided an excellent opportunity for our research lab to integrate our many ideas under one umbrella, inspiring both collaboration and new research. The task, visual search for an unknown object, is relevant to both the vision and robotics communities. Moreover, since the interplay of robotics and vision is sometimes ignored, the competition provides a venue to integrate two communities. In this paper, we outline a number of modifications to the competition to both improve the state-of-the-art and increase participation.
0908.2661
Human-Robot Teams in Entertainment and Other Everyday Scenarios
cs.MA cs.CY cs.HC
A new and relatively unexplored research direction in robotics systems is the coordination of humans and robots working as a team. In this paper, we focus upon problem domains and tasks in which multiple robots, humans and other agents are cooperating through coordination to satisfy a set of goals or to maximize utility. We are primarily interested in applications of human robot coordination in entertainment and other activities of daily life. We discuss the teamwork problem and propose an architecture to address this.