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1011.2575
Complex sequencing rules of birdsong can be explained by simple hidden Markov processes
q-bio.NC cs.CL
Complex sequencing rules observed in birdsongs provide an opportunity to investigate the neural mechanism for generating complex sequential behaviors. To relate the findings from studying birdsongs to other sequential behaviors, it is crucial to characterize the statistical properties of the sequencing rules in birdsongs. However, the properties of the sequencing rules in birdsongs have not yet been fully addressed. In this study, we investigate the statistical propertiesof the complex birdsong of the Bengalese finch (Lonchura striata var. domestica). Based on manual-annotated syllable sequences, we first show that there are significant higher-order context dependencies in Bengalese finch songs, that is, which syllable appears next depends on more than one previous syllable. This property is shared with other complex sequential behaviors. We then analyze acoustic features of the song and show that higher-order context dependencies can be explained using first-order hidden state transition dynamics with redundant hidden states. This model corresponds to hidden Markov models (HMMs), well known statistical models with a large range of application for time series modeling. The song annotation with these models with first-order hidden state dynamics agreed well with manual annotation, the score was comparable to that of a second-order HMM, and surpassed the zeroth-order model (the Gaussian mixture model (GMM)), which does not use context information. Our results imply that the hierarchical representation with hidden state dynamics may underlie the neural implementation for generating complex sequences with higher-order dependencies.
1011.2624
Clustering using Unsupervised Binary Trees: CUBT
stat.ME cs.LG stat.CO
We herein introduce a new method of interpretable clustering that uses unsupervised binary trees. It is a three-stage procedure, the first stage of which entails a series of recursive binary splits to reduce the heterogeneity of the data within the new subsamples. During the second stage (pruning), consideration is given to whether adjacent nodes can be aggregated. Finally, during the third stage (joining), similar clusters are joined together, even if they do not share the same parent originally. Consistency results are obtained, and the procedure is used on simulated and real data sets.
1011.2644
Do AES encryptions act randomly?
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is widely recognized as the most important block cipher in common use nowadays. This high assurance in AES is given by its resistance to ten years of extensive cryptanalysis, that has shown no weakness, not even any deviation from the statistical behaviour expected from a random permutation. Only reduced versions of the ciphers have been broken, but they are not usually implemented. In this paper we build a distinguishing attack on the AES, exploiting the properties of a novel cipher embedding. With our attack we give some statistical evidence that the set of AES-$128$ encryptions acts on the message space in a way significantly different than that of the set of random permutations acting on the same space. While we feel that more computational experiments by independent third parties are needed in order to validate our statistical results, we show that the non-random behaviour is the same as we would predict using the property of our embedding. Indeed, the embedding lowers the nonlinearity of the AES rounds and therefore the AES encryptions tend, on average, to keep low the rank of low-rank matrices constructed in the large space. Our attack needs $2^{23}$ plaintext-ciphertext pairs and costs the equivalent of $2^{48}$ encryptions. We expect our attack to work also for AES-$192$ and AES-$256$, as confirmed by preliminary experiments.
1011.2686
A Discrete Time Markov Chain Model for High Throughput Bidirectional Fano Decoders
cs.IT math.IT
The bidirectional Fano algorithm (BFA) can achieve at least two times decoding throughput compared to the conventional unidirectional Fano algorithm (UFA). In this paper, bidirectional Fano decoding is examined from the queuing theory perspective. A Discrete Time Markov Chain (DTMC) is employed to model the BFA decoder with a finite input buffer. The relationship between the input data rate, the input buffer size and the clock speed of the BFA decoder is established. The DTMC based modelling can be used in designing a high throughput parallel BFA decoding system. It is shown that there is a tradeoff between the number of BFA decoders and the input buffer size, and an optimal input buffer size can be chosen to minimize the hardware complexity for a target decoding throughput in designing a high throughput parallel BFA decoding system.
1011.2689
Contact processes and moment closure on adaptive networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Contact processes describe the transmission of distinct properties of nodes via the links of a network. They provide a simple framework for many phenomena, such as epidemic spreading and opinion formation. Combining contact processes with rules for topological evolution yields an adaptive network in which the states of the nodes can interact dynamically with the topological degrees of freedom. By moment-closure approximation it is possible to derive low-dimensional systems of ordinary differential equations that describe the dynamics of the adaptive network on a coarse-grained level. In this chapter we discuss the approximation technique itself as well as its applications to adaptive networks. Thus, it can serve both as a tutorial as well as a review of recent results.
1011.2719
Decidability Classes for Mobile Agents Computing
cs.DC cs.CC cs.MA
We establish a classification of decision problems that are to be solved by mobile agents operating in unlabeled graphs, using a deterministic protocol. The classification is with respect to the ability of a team of agents to solve the problem, possibly with the aid of additional information. In particular, our focus is on studying differences between the decidability of a decision problem by agents and its verifiability when a certificate for a positive answer is provided to the agents. We show that the class MAV of mobile agents verifiable problems is much wider than the class MAD of mobile agents decidable problems. Our main result shows that there exist natural MAV-complete problems: the most difficult problems in this class, to which all problems in MAV are reducible. Our construction of a MAV-complete problem involves two main ingredients in mobile agents computability: the topology of the quotient graph and the number of operating agents. Beyond the class MAV we show that, for a single agent, three natural oracles yield a strictly increasing chain of relative decidability classes.
1011.2740
Deterministic Compressed Sensing Matrices from Multiplicative Character Sequences
cs.IT math.IT
Compressed sensing is a novel technique where one can recover sparse signals from the undersampled measurements. In this paper, a $K \times N$ measurement matrix for compressed sensing is deterministically constructed via multiplicative character sequences. Precisely, a constant multiple of a cyclic shift of an $M$-ary power residue or Sidelnikov sequence is arranged as a column vector of the matrix, through modulating a primitive $M$-th root of unity. The Weil bound is then used to show that the matrix has asymptotically optimal coherence for large $K$ and $M$, and to present a sufficient condition on the sparsity level for unique sparse solution. Also, the restricted isometry property (RIP) is statistically studied for the deterministic matrix. Numerical results show that the deterministic compressed sensing matrix guarantees reliable matching pursuit recovery performance for both noiseless and noisy measurements.
1011.2795
A Distributed Data Collection Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks with Persistent Storage Nodes
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
A distributed data collection algorithm to accurately store and forward information obtained by wireless sensor networks is proposed. The proposed algorithm does not depend on the sensor network topology, routing tables, or geographic locations of sensor nodes, but rather makes use of uniformly distributed storage nodes. Analytical and simulation results for this algorithm show that, with high probability, the data disseminated by the sensor nodes can be precisely collected by querying any small set of storage nodes.
1011.2797
When are microcircuits well-modeled by maximum entropy methods?
q-bio.NC cond-mat.dis-nn cs.IT math.IT physics.data-an
Describing the collective activity of neural populations is a daunting task: the number of possible patterns grows exponentially with the number of cells, resulting in practically unlimited complexity. Recent empirical studies, however, suggest a vast simplification in how multi-neuron spiking occurs: the activity patterns of some circuits are nearly completely captured by pairwise interactions among neurons. Why are such pairwise models so successful in some instances, but insufficient in others? Here, we study the emergence of higher-order interactions in simple circuits with different architectures and inputs. We quantify the impact of higher-order interactions by comparing the responses of mechanistic circuit models vs. "null" descriptions in which all higher-than-pairwise correlations have been accounted for by lower order statistics, known as pairwise maximum entropy models. We find that bimodal input signals produce larger deviations from pairwise predictions than unimodal inputs for circuits with local and global connectivity. Moreover, recurrent coupling can accentuate these deviations, if coupling strengths are neither too weak nor too strong. A circuit model based on intracellular recordings from ON parasol retinal ganglion cells shows that a broad range of light signals induce unimodal inputs to spike generators, and that coupling strengths produce weak effects on higher-order interactions. This provides a novel explanation for the success of pairwise models in this system. Overall, our findings identify circuit-level mechanisms that produce and fail to produce higher-order spiking statistics in neural ensembles.
1011.2807
Efficient K-Nearest Neighbor Join Algorithms for High Dimensional Sparse Data
cs.DB cs.DS
The K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) join is an expensive but important operation in many data mining algorithms. Several recent applications need to perform KNN join for high dimensional sparse data. Unfortunately, all existing KNN join algorithms are designed for low dimensional data. To fulfill this void, we investigate the KNN join problem for high dimensional sparse data. In this paper, we propose three KNN join algorithms: a brute force (BF) algorithm, an inverted index-based(IIB) algorithm and an improved inverted index-based(IIIB) algorithm. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithms for high dimensional sparse data.
1011.2809
Multipath Parameter Estimation from OFDM Signals in Mobile Channels
cs.IT math.IT
We study multipath parameter estimation from orthogonal frequency division multiplex signals transmitted over doubly dispersive mobile radio channels. We are interested in cases where the transmission is long enough to suffer time selectivity, but short enough such that the time variation can be accurately modeled as depending only on per-tap linear phase variations due to Doppler effects. We therefore concentrate on the estimation of the complex gain, delay and Doppler offset of each tap of the multipath channel impulse response. We show that the frequency domain channel coefficients for an entire packet can be expressed as the superimposition of two-dimensional complex sinusoids. The maximum likelihood estimate requires solution of a multidimensional non-linear least squares problem, which is computationally infeasible in practice. We therefore propose a low complexity suboptimal solution based on iterative successive and parallel cancellation. First, initial delay/Doppler estimates are obtained via successive cancellation. These estimates are then refined using an iterative parallel cancellation procedure. We demonstrate via Monte Carlo simulations that the root mean squared error statistics of our estimator are very close to the Cramer-Rao lower bound of a single two-dimensional sinusoid in Gaussian noise.
1011.2834
New Set of Codes for the Maximum-Likelihood Decoding Problem
cs.IT math.IT
The maximum-likelihood decoding problem is known to be NP-hard for general linear and Reed-Solomon codes. In this paper, we introduce the notion of A-covered codes, that is, codes that can be decoded through a polynomial time algorithm A whose decoding bound is beyond the covering radius. For these codes, we show that the maximum-likelihood decoding problem is reachable in polynomial time in the code parameters. Focusing on bi- nary BCH codes, we were able to find several examples of A-covered codes, including two codes for which the maximum-likelihood decoding problem can be solved in quasi-quadratic time.
1011.2835
Approximately Optimal Wireless Broadcasting
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
We study a wireless broadcast network, where a single source reliably communicates independent messages to multiple destinations, with the aid of relays and cooperation between destinations. The wireless nature of the medium is captured by the broadcast nature of transmissions as well as the superposition of all transmit signals plus independent Gaussian noise at the received signal at any radio. We propose a scheme that can achieve rate tuples within a constant gap away from the cut-set bound, where the constant is independent of channel coefficients and power constraints. The proposed scheme operates in two steps. The inner code, in which the relays perform a quantize-and-encode operation, is constructed by lifting a scheme designed for a corresponding discrete superposition network. The outer code is a Marton code for the non-Gaussian vector broadcast channel induced by the relaying scheme, and is constructed by adopting a ``receiver-centric'' viewpoint.
1011.2898
Reified unit resolution and the failed literal rule
cs.LO cs.AI
Unit resolution can simplify a CNF formula or detect an inconsistency by repeatedly assign the variables occurring in unit clauses. Given any CNF formula sigma, we show that there exists a satisfiable CNF formula psi with size polynomially related to the size of sigma such that applying unit resolution to psi simulates all the effects of applying it to sigma. The formula psi is said to be the reified counterpart of sigma. This approach can be used to prove that the failed literal rule, which is an inference rule used by some SAT solvers, can be entirely simulated by unit resolution. More generally, it sheds new light on the expressive power of unit resolution.
1011.2918
Mean field limit of a continuous time finite state game
math.OC cs.SY math.DS
Mean field games is a recent area of study introduced by Lions and Lasry in a series of seminal papers in 2006. Mean field games model situations of competition between large number of rational agents that play non-cooperative dynamic games under certain symmetry assumptions. They key step is to develop a mean field model, in a similar way that what is done in statistical physics in order to construct a mathematically tractable model. A main question that arises in the study of such mean field problems is the rigorous justification of the mean field models by a limiting procedure. In this paper we consider the mean field limit of two-state Markov decision problem as the number of players $N\to \infty$. First we establish the existence and uniqueness of a symmetric partial information Markov perfect equilibrium. Then we derive a mean field model and characterize its main properties. This mean field limit is a system of coupled ordinary differential equations with initial-terminal data. Our main result is the convergence as $N\to \infty$ of the $N$ player game to the mean field model and an estimate of the rate of convergence.
1011.2919
Hardware architectures for Successive Cancellation Decoding of Polar Codes
cs.AR cs.IT math.IT
The recently-discovered polar codes are widely seen as a major breakthrough in coding theory. These codes achieve the capacity of many important channels under successive cancellation decoding. Motivated by the rapid progress in the theory of polar codes, we propose a family of architectures for efficient hardware implementation of successive cancellation decoders. We show that such decoders can be implemented with O(n) processing elements and O(n) memory elements, while providing constant throughput. We also propose a technique for overlapping the decoding of several consecutive codewords, thereby achieving a significant speed-up factor. We furthermore show that successive cancellation decoding can be implemented in the logarithmic domain, thereby eliminating the multiplication and division operations and greatly reducing the complexity of each processing element.
1011.2922
Emoticonsciousness
cs.CL
A temporal analysis of emoticon use in Swedish, Italian, German and English asynchronous electronic communication is reported. Emoticons are classified as positive, negative and neutral. Postings to newsgroups over a 66 week period are considered. The aggregate analysis of emoticon use in newsgroups for science and politics tend on the whole to be consistent over the entire time period. Where possible, events that coincide with divergences from trends in language-subject pairs are noted. Political discourse in Italian over the period shows marked use of negative emoticons, and in Swedish, positive emoticons.
1011.2945
Phase transitions for the cavity approach to the clique problem on random graphs
math.PR cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We give a rigorous proof of two phase transitions for a disordered system designed to find large cliques inside Erdos random graphs. Such a system is associated with a conservative probabilistic cellular automaton inspired by the cavity method originally introduced in spin glass theory.
1011.2989
A Decoding Approach to Fault Tolerant Control of Linear Systems with Quantized Disturbance Input
math.OC cs.IT math.IT
The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative method to solve a Fault Tolerant Control problem. The model is a linear system affected by a disturbance term: this represents a large class of technological faulty processes. The goal is to make the system able to tolerate the undesired perturbation, i.e., to remove or at least reduce its negative effects; such a task is performed in three steps: the detection of the fault, its identification and the consequent process recovery. When the disturbance function is known to be \emph{quantized} over a finite number of levels, the detection can be successfully executed by a recursive \emph{decoding} algorithm, arising from Information and Coding Theory and suitably adapted to the control framework. This technique is analyzed and tested in a flight control issue; both theoretical considerations and simulations are reported.
1011.2996
Large-deviation properties of largest component for random graphs
cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI physics.data-an physics.soc-ph
Distributions of the size of the largest component, in particular the large-deviation tail, are studied numerically for two graph ensembles, for Erdoes-Renyi random graphs with finite connectivity and for two-dimensional bond percolation. Probabilities as small as 10^-180 are accessed using an artificial finite-temperature (Boltzmann) ensemble. The distributions for the Erdoes-Renyi ensemble agree well with previously obtained analytical results. The results for the percolation problem, where no analytical results are available, are qualitatively similar, but the shapes of the distributions are somehow different and the finite-size corrections are sometimes much larger. Furthermore, for both problems, a first-order phase transition at low temperatures T within the artificial ensemble is found in the percolating regime, respectively.
1011.3019
Bounded Multivariate Surfaces On Monovariate Internal Functions
cs.CV
Combining the properties of monovariate internal functions as proposed in Kolmogorov superimposition theorem, in tandem with the bounds wielded by the multivariate formulation of Chebyshev inequality, a hybrid model is presented, that decomposes images into homogeneous probabilistically bounded multivariate surfaces. Given an image, the model shows a novel way of working on reduced image representation while processing and capturing the interaction among the multidimensional information that describes the content of the same. Further, it tackles the practical issues of preventing leakage by bounding the growth of surface and reducing the problem sample size. The model if used, also sheds light on how the Chebyshev parameter relates to the number of pixels and the dimensionality of the feature space that associates with a pixel. Initial segmentation results on the Berkeley image segmentation benchmark indicate the effectiveness of the proposed decomposition algorithm.
1011.3023
Classification with Scattering Operators
cs.CV
A scattering vector is a local descriptor including multiscale and multi-direction co-occurrence information. It is computed with a cascade of wavelet decompositions and complex modulus. This scattering representation is locally translation invariant and linearizes deformations. A supervised classification algorithm is computed with a PCA model selection on scattering vectors. State of the art results are obtained for handwritten digit recognition and texture classification.
1011.3062
Generalized Stable Matching in Bipartite Networks
math.OC cs.DM cs.GT cs.SI
In this paper we study the generalized version of weighted matching in bipartite networks. Consider a weighted matching in a bipartite network in which the nodes derive value from the split of the matching edge assigned to them if they are matched. The value a node derives from the split depends both on the split as well as the partner the node is matched to. We assume that the value of a split to the node is continuous and strictly increasing in the part of the split assigned to the node. A stable weighted matching is a matching and splits on the edges in the matching such that no two adjacent nodes in the network can split the edge between them so that both of them can derive a higher value than in the matching. We extend the weighted matching problem to this general case and study the existence of a stable weighted matching. We also present an algorithm that converges to a stable weighted matching. The algorithm generalizes the Hungarian algorithm for bipartite matching. Faster algorithms can be made when there is more structure on the value functions.
1011.3074
Distributed Detection over Gaussian Multiple Access Channels with Constant Modulus Signaling
cs.IT math.IT
A distributed detection scheme where the sensors transmit with constant modulus signals over a Gaussian multiple access channel is considered. The deflection coefficient of the proposed scheme is shown to depend on the characteristic function of the sensing noise and the error exponent for the system is derived using large deviation theory. Optimization of the deflection coefficient and error exponent are considered with respect to a transmission phase parameter for a variety of sensing noise distributions including impulsive ones. The proposed scheme is also favorably compared with existing amplify-and-forward and detect-and-forward schemes. The effect of fading is shown to be detrimental to the detection performance through a reduction in the deflection coefficient depending on the fading statistics. Simulations corroborate that the deflection coefficient and error exponent can be effectively used to optimize the error probability for a wide variety of sensing noise distributions.
1011.3090
Regularization Strategies and Empirical Bayesian Learning for MKL
stat.ML cs.LG
Multiple kernel learning (MKL), structured sparsity, and multi-task learning have recently received considerable attention. In this paper, we show how different MKL algorithms can be understood as applications of either regularization on the kernel weights or block-norm-based regularization, which is more common in structured sparsity and multi-task learning. We show that these two regularization strategies can be systematically mapped to each other through a concave conjugate operation. When the kernel-weight-based regularizer is separable into components, we can naturally consider a generative probabilistic model behind MKL. Based on this model, we propose learning algorithms for the kernel weights through the maximization of marginal likelihood. We show through numerical experiments that $\ell_2$-norm MKL and Elastic-net MKL achieve comparable accuracy to uniform kernel combination. Although uniform kernel combination might be preferable from its simplicity, $\ell_2$-norm MKL and Elastic-net MKL can learn the usefulness of the information sources represented as kernels. In particular, Elastic-net MKL achieves sparsity in the kernel weights.
1011.3115
Cyber-Physical Control over Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks with Packet Loss
cs.NI cs.SY
There is a growing interest in design and implementation of cyber-physical control systems over wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs). Thanks to the use of wireless communications and distributed architectures, these systems encompass many advantages as compared to traditional networked control systems using hard wirelines. While WSANs are enabling a new generation of control systems, they also introduce considerable challenges for quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning. In this chapter we examine some of the major QoS challenges raised by WSANs, including resource constraints, platform heterogeneity, dynamic network topology, and mixed traffic. These challenges make it difficult to fulfill the requirements of cyber-physical control in terms of reliability and real-time. The focus of this chapter is on addressing the problem of network reliability. Specifically, we analyze the behavior of wireless channels via simulations based on a realistic link-layer model. Packet loss rate (PLR) is taken as a major metric for the analysis. The results confirm the unreliability of wireless communications and the uncertainty of packet loss over WSANs. To tackle packet loss, we present a simple solution that can take advantage of existing prediction algorithms. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of several classical prediction algorithms used for packet loss compensation. The results give some insights into how to deal with packet loss in cyber-physical control systems over unreliable WSANs.
1011.3120
The Local Emergence and Global Diffusion of Research Technologies: An Exploration of Patterns of Network Formation
cs.DL cs.SI
Grasping the fruits of "emerging technologies" is an objective of many government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy. We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of two innovation trajectories: small interference RNA (siRNA) and nano-crystalline solar cells (NCSC). Methods for analyzing and visualizing geographical and cognitive diffusion are specified as indicators of different dynamics. Geographical diffusion is illustrated with overlays to Google Maps; cognitive diffusion is mapped using an overlay to a map based on the ISI Subject Categories. The evolving geographical networks show both preferential attachment and small-world characteristics. The strength of preferential attachment decreases over time, while the network evolves into an oligopolistic control structure with small-world characteristics. The transition from disciplinary-oriented ("mode-1") to transfer-oriented ("mode-2") research is suggested as the crucial difference in explaining the different rates of diffusion between siRNA and NCSC.
1011.3152
On the Energy Efficiency of LT Codes in Proactive Wireless Sensor Networks
cs.IT math.IT
This paper presents an in-depth analysis on the energy efficiency of Luby Transform (LT) codes with Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) modulation in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) over Rayleigh fading channels with pathloss. We describe a proactive system model according to a flexible duty-cycling mechanism utilized in practical sensor apparatus. The present analysis is based on realistic parameters including the effect of channel bandwidth used in the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, active mode duration and computation energy. A comprehensive analysis, supported by some simulation studies on the probability mass function of the LT code rate and coding gain, shows that among uncoded FSK and various classical channel coding schemes, the optimized LT coded FSK is the most energy-efficient scheme for distance d greater than the pre-determined threshold level d_T , where the optimization is performed over coding and modulation parameters. In addition, although the optimized uncoded FSK outperforms coded schemes for d < d_T , the energy gap between LT coded and uncoded FSK is negligible for d < d_T compared to the other coded schemes. These results come from the flexibility of the LT code to adjust its rate to suit instantaneous channel conditions, and suggest that LT codes are beneficial in practical low-power WSNs with dynamic position sensor nodes.
1011.3168
Online Learning: Beyond Regret
stat.ML cs.GT cs.LG
We study online learnability of a wide class of problems, extending the results of (Rakhlin, Sridharan, Tewari, 2010) to general notions of performance measure well beyond external regret. Our framework simultaneously captures such well-known notions as internal and general Phi-regret, learning with non-additive global cost functions, Blackwell's approachability, calibration of forecasters, adaptive regret, and more. We show that learnability in all these situations is due to control of the same three quantities: a martingale convergence term, a term describing the ability to perform well if future is known, and a generalization of sequential Rademacher complexity, studied in (Rakhlin, Sridharan, Tewari, 2010). Since we directly study complexity of the problem instead of focusing on efficient algorithms, we are able to improve and extend many known results which have been previously derived via an algorithmic construction.
1011.3174
Tensor-SIFT based Earth Mover's Distance for Contour Tracking
cs.CV math.OC
Contour tracking in adverse environments is a challenging problem due to cluttered background, illumination variation, occlusion, and noise, among others. This paper presents a robust contour tracking method by contributing to some of the key issues involved, including (a) a region functional formulation and its optimization; (b) design of a robust and effective feature; and (c) development of an integrated tracking algorithm. First, we formulate a region functional based on robust Earth Mover's distance (EMD) with kernel density for distribution modeling, and propose a two-phase method for its optimization. In the first phase, letting the candidate contour be fixed, we express EMD as the transportation problem and solve it by the simplex algorithm. Next, using the theory of shape derivative, we make a perturbation analysis of the contour around the best solution to the transportation problem. This leads to a partial differential equation (PDE) that governs the contour evolution. Second, we design a novel and effective feature for tracking applications. We propose a dimensionality reduction method by tensor decomposition, achieving a low-dimensional description of SIFT features called Tensor-SIFT for characterizing local image region properties. Applicable to both color and gray-level images, Tensor-SIFT is very distinctive, insensitive to illumination changes, and noise. Finally, we develop an integrated algorithm that combines various techniques of the simplex algorithm, narrow-band level set and fast marching algorithms. Particularly, we introduce an inter-frame initialization method and a stopping criterion for the termination of PDE iteration. Experiments in challenging image sequences show that the proposed work has promising performance.
1011.3177
The Data Replication Method for the Classification with Reject Option
cs.CV
Classification is one of the most important tasks of machine learning. Although the most well studied model is the two-class problem, in many scenarios there is the opportunity to label critical items for manual revision, instead of trying to automatically classify every item. In this paper we adapt a paradigm initially proposed for the classification of ordinal data to address the classification problem with reject option. The technique reduces the problem of classifying with reject option to the standard two-class problem. The introduced method is then mapped into support vector machines and neural networks. Finally, the framework is extended to multiclass ordinal data with reject option. An experimental study with synthetic and real data sets, verifies the usefulness of the proposed approach.
1011.3189
Warping Peirce Quincuncial Panoramas
cs.CV cs.GR eess.IV
The Peirce quincuncial projection is a mapping of the surface of a sphere to the interior of a square. It is a conformal map except for four points on the equator. These points of non-conformality cause significant artifacts in photographic applications. In this paper, we propose an algorithm and user-interface to mitigate these artifacts. Moreover, in order to facilitate an interactive user-interface, we present a fast algorithm for calculating the Peirce quincuncial projection of spherical imagery. We then promote the Peirce quincuncial projection as a viable alternative to the more popular stereographic projection in some scenarios.
1011.3241
New Methods of Analysis of Narrative and Semantics in Support of Interactivity
cs.AI cs.HC stat.AP
Our work has focused on support for film or television scriptwriting. Since this involves potentially varied story-lines, we note the implicit or latent support for interactivity. Furthermore the film, television, games, publishing and other sectors are converging, so that cross-over and re-use of one form of product in another of these sectors is ever more common. Technically our work has been largely based on mathematical algorithms for data clustering and display. Operationally, we also discuss how our algorithms can support collective, distributed problem-solving.
1011.3244
"Meaning" as a sociological concept: A review of the modeling, mapping, and simulation of the communication of knowledge and meaning
nlin.AO cs.AI physics.soc-ph
The development of discursive knowledge presumes the communication of meaning as analytically different from the communication of information. Knowledge can then be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. Whereas the communication of information is studied in the information sciences and scientometrics, the communication of meaning has been central to Luhmann's attempts to make the theory of autopoiesis relevant for sociology. Analytical techniques such as semantic maps and the simulation of anticipatory systems enable us to operationalize the distinctions which Luhmann proposed as relevant to the elaboration of Husserl's "horizons of meaning" in empirical research: interactions among communications, the organization of meaning in instantiations, and the self-organization of interhuman communication in terms of symbolically generalized media such as truth, love, and power. Horizons of meaning, however, remain uncertain orders of expectations, and one should caution against reification from the meta-biological perspective of systems theory.
1011.3257
Integration of Flexible Web Based GUI in I-SOAS
cs.HC cs.AI
It is necessary to improve the concepts of the present web based graphical user interface for the development of more flexible and intelligent interface to provide ease and increase the level of comfort at user end like most of the desktop based applications. This research is conducted targeting the goal of implementing flexible GUI consisting of a visual component manager with different components by functionality, design and purpose. In this research paper we present a Rich Internet Application (RIA) based graphical user interface for web based product development, and going into the details we present a comparison between existing RIA Technologies, adopted methodology in the GUI development and developed prototype.
1011.3258
Integration of Agile Ontology Mapping towards NLP Search in I-SOAS
cs.CL cs.IR
In this research paper we address the importance of Product Data Management (PDM) with respect to its contributions in industry. Moreover we also present some currently available major challenges to PDM communities and targeting some of these challenges we present an approach i.e. I-SOAS, and briefly discuss how this approach can be helpful in solving the PDM community's faced problems. Furthermore, limiting the scope of this research to one challenge, we focus on the implementation of a semantic based search mechanism in PDM Systems. Going into the details, at first we describe the respective field i.e. Language Technology (LT), contributing towards natural language processing, to take advantage in implementing a search engine capable of understanding the semantic out of natural language based search queries. Then we discuss how can we practically take advantage of LT by implementing its concepts in the form of software application with the use of semantic web technology i.e. Ontology. Later, in the end of this research paper, we briefly present a prototype application developed with the use of concepts of LT towards semantic based search.
1011.3272
Group-Decodable Space-Time Block Codes with Code Rate > 1
cs.IT math.IT
High-rate space-time block codes (STBC with code rate > 1) in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems are able to provide both spatial multiplexing gain and diversity gain, but have high maximum likelihood (ML) decoding complexity. Since group-decodable (quasi-orthogonal) code structure can reduce the decoding complexity, we present in this paper systematic methods to construct group-decodable high-rate STBC with full symbol-wise diversity gain for arbitrary transmit antenna number and code length. We show that the proposed group-decodable STBC can achieve high code rate that increases almost linearly with the transmit antenna number, and the slope of this near-linear dependence increases with the code length. Comparisons with existing low-rate and high-rate codes (such as orthogonal STBC and algebraic STBC) are conducted to show the decoding complexity reduction and good code performance achieved by the proposed codes.
1011.3315
Evolutionary method for finding communities in bipartite networks
physics.data-an cond-mat.stat-mech cs.NE cs.SI physics.soc-ph
An important step in unveiling the relation between network structure and dynamics defined on networks is to detect communities, and numerous methods have been developed separately to identify community structure in different classes of networks, such as unipartite networks, bipartite networks, and directed networks. We show that both unipartite and directed networks can be represented as bipartite networks, and their modularity is completely consistent with that for bipartite networks, the detection of modular structure on which can be reformulated as modularity maximization. To optimize the bipartite modularity, we develop a modified adaptive genetic algorithm (MAGA), which is shown to be especially efficient for community structure detection. The high efficiency of the MAGA is based on the following three improvements we make. First, we introduce a different measure for the informativeness of a locus instead of the standard deviation, which can exactly determine which loci mutate. This measure is the bias between the distribution of a locus over the current population and the uniform distribution of the locus, i.e., the Kullback-Leibler divergence between them. Second, we develop a reassignment technique for differentiating the informative state a locus has attained from the random state in the initial phase. Third, we present a modified mutation rule which by incorporating related operation can guarantee the convergence of the MAGA to the global optimum and can speed up the convergence process. Experimental results show that the MAGA outperforms existing methods in terms of modularity for both bipartite and unipartite networks.
1011.3347
On sizes of complete arcs in PG(2,q)
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
New upper bounds on the smallest size t_{2}(2,q) of a complete arc in the projective plane PG(2,q) are obtained for 853 <= q <= 4561 and q\in T1\cup T2 where T1={173,181,193,229,243,257,271,277,293,343,373,409,443,449,457, 461,463,467,479,487,491,499,529,563,569,571,577,587,593,599,601,607,613,617,619,631, 641,661,673,677,683,691, 709}, T2={4597,4703,4723,4733,4789,4799,4813,4831,5003,5347,5641,5843,6011,8192}. From these new bounds it follows that for q <= 2593 and q=2693,2753, the relation t_{2}(2,q) < 4.5\sqrt{q} holds. Also, for q <= 4561 we have t_{2}(2,q) < 4.75\sqrt{q}. It is showed that for 23 <= q <= 4561 and q\in T2\cup {2^{14},2^{15},2^{18}}, the inequality t_{2}(2,q) < \sqrt{q}ln^{0.75}q is true. Moreover, the results obtained allow us to conjecture that this estimate holds for all q >= 23. The new upper bounds are obtained by finding new small complete arcs with the help of a computer search using randomized greedy algorithms. Also new constructions of complete arcs are proposed. These constructions form families of k-arcs in PG(2,q) containing arcs of all sizes k in a region k_{min} <= k <= k_{max} where k_{min} is of order q/3 or q/4 while k_{max} has order q/2. The completeness of the arcs obtained by the new constructions is proved for q <= 1367 and 2003 <= q <= 2063. There is reason to suppose that the arcs are complete for all q > 1367. New sizes of complete arcs in PG(2,q) are presented for 169 <= q <= 349 and q=1013,2003.
1011.3380
Achievable Rates over Doubly Selective Rician-Fading Channels under Peak-Power Constraint
cs.IT math.IT
The goal of this paper is to obtain a better knowledge of the achievable data rate over noncoherent Rician fading channel with time and frequency memory. We assume that the average-power as well as the peak-power of the input signal are finite and the peak-power limitation is applied in the time domain. Expression for this rate is based on a lower bound on mutual information that assume independent and identically distributed input data symbols. The lower bound is expressed as a difference of two terms. The first term is the information rate of the coherent channel with a weighted signal-to-noise ratio that results from the peak-power limitation. The second term is a penalty term, explicit in the Doppler spectrum of the channel, that captures the effect of the channel uncertainty induced by the noncoherent setting. Impact of channel parameters, such as delay and Doppler spread, on the information rate are discussed and numerical applications on an experimental Rician channel surveyed in an acoustic underwater environment are also provided.
1011.3397
The Inverse Task of the Reflexive Game Theory: Theoretical Matters, Practical Applications and Relationship with Other Issues
cs.MA cs.AI cs.RO
The Reflexive Game Theory (RGT) has been recently proposed by Vladimir Lefebvre to model behavior of individuals in groups. The goal of this study is to introduce the Inverse task. We consider methods of solution together with practical applications. We present a brief overview of the RGT for easy understanding of the problem. We also develop the schematic representation of the RGT inference algorithms to create the basis for soft- and hardware solutions of the RGT tasks. We propose a unified hierarchy of schemas to represent humans and robots. This hierarchy is considered as a unified framework to solve the entire spectrum of the RGT tasks. We conclude by illustrating how this framework can be applied for modeling of mixed groups of humans and robots. All together this provides the exhaustive solution of the Inverse task and clearly illustrates its role and relationships with other issues considered in the RGT.
1011.3400
Prize insights in probability, and one goat of a recycled error: Jason Rosenhouse's The Monty Hall Problem
math.HO cs.AI math.PR math.ST stat.TH
The Monty Hall problem is the TV game scenario where you, the contestant, are presented with three doors, with a car hidden behind one and goats hidden behind the other two. After you select a door, the host (Monty Hall) opens a second door to reveal a goat. You are then invited to stay with your original choice of door, or to switch to the remaining unopened door, and claim whatever you find behind it. Assuming your objective is to win the car, is your best strategy to stay or switch, or does it not matter? Jason Rosenhouse has provided the definitive analysis of this game, along with several intriguing variations, and discusses some of its psychological and philosophical implications. This extended review examines several themes from the book in some detail from a Bayesian perspective, and points out one apparently inadvertent error.
1011.3466
Non-Existence of Linear Universal Drift Functions
cs.NE math.PR
Drift analysis has become a powerful tool to prove bounds on the runtime of randomized search heuristics. It allows, for example, fairly simple proofs for the classical problem how the (1+1) Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) optimizes an arbitrary pseudo-Boolean linear function. The key idea of drift analysis is to measure the progress via another pseudo-Boolean function (called drift function) and use deeper results from probability theory to derive from this a good bound for the runtime of the EA. Surprisingly, all these results manage to use the same drift function for all linear objective functions. In this work, we show that such universal drift functions only exist if the mutation probability is close to the standard value of $1/n$.
1011.3494
Learning Planar Ising Models
stat.ML cs.AI
Inference and learning of graphical models are both well-studied problems in statistics and machine learning that have found many applications in science and engineering. However, exact inference is intractable in general graphical models, which suggests the problem of seeking the best approximation to a collection of random variables within some tractable family of graphical models. In this paper, we focus our attention on the class of planar Ising models, for which inference is tractable using techniques of statistical physics [Kac and Ward; Kasteleyn]. Based on these techniques and recent methods for planarity testing and planar embedding [Chrobak and Payne], we propose a simple greedy algorithm for learning the best planar Ising model to approximate an arbitrary collection of binary random variables (possibly from sample data). Given the set of all pairwise correlations among variables, we select a planar graph and optimal planar Ising model defined on this graph to best approximate that set of correlations. We demonstrate our method in some simulations and for the application of modeling senate voting records.
1011.3498
Effects of the Generation Size and Overlap on Throughput and Complexity in Randomized Linear Network Coding
cs.IT cs.DM math.IT
To reduce computational complexity and delay in randomized network coded content distribution, and for some other practical reasons, coding is not performed simultaneously over all content blocks, but over much smaller, possibly overlapping subsets of these blocks, known as generations. A penalty of this strategy is throughput reduction. To analyze the throughput loss, we model coding over generations with random generation scheduling as a coupon collector's brotherhood problem. This model enables us to derive the expected number of coded packets needed for successful decoding of the entire content as well as the probability of decoding failure (the latter only when generations do not overlap) and further, to quantify the tradeoff between computational complexity and throughput. Interestingly, with a moderate increase in the generation size, throughput quickly approaches link capacity. Overlaps between generations can further improve throughput substantially for relatively small generation sizes.
1011.3516
A statistical-mechanical view on source coding: physical compression and data compression
cond-mat.stat-mech cs.IT math.IT
We draw a certain analogy between the classical information-theoretic problem of lossy data compression (source coding) of memoryless information sources and the statistical mechanical behavior of a certain model of a chain of connected particles (e.g., a polymer) that is subjected to a contracting force. The free energy difference pertaining to such a contraction turns out to be proportional to the rate-distortion function in the analogous data compression model, and the contracting force is proportional to the derivative this function. Beyond the fact that this analogy may be interesting on its own right, it may provide a physical perspective on the behavior of optimum schemes for lossy data compression (and perhaps also, an information-theoretic perspective on certain physical system models). Moreover, it triggers the derivation of lossy compression performance for systems with memory, using analysis tools and insights from statistical mechanics.
1011.3550
Overlay Protection Against Link Failures Using Network Coding
cs.IT math.IT
This paper introduces a network coding-based protection scheme against single and multiple link failures. The proposed strategy ensures that in a connection, each node receives two copies of the same data unit: one copy on the working circuit, and a second copy that can be extracted from linear combinations of data units transmitted on a shared protection path. This guarantees instantaneous recovery of data units upon the failure of a working circuit. The strategy can be implemented at an overlay layer, which makes its deployment simple and scalable. While the proposed strategy is similar in spirit to the work of Kamal '07 & '10, there are significant differences. In particular, it provides protection against multiple link failures. The new scheme is simpler, less expensive, and does not require the synchronization required by the original scheme. The sharing of the protection circuit by a number of connections is the key to the reduction of the cost of protection. The paper also conducts a comparison of the cost of the proposed scheme to the 1+1 and shared backup path protection (SBPP) strategies, and establishes the benefits of our strategy.
1011.3557
A Probabilistic Approach for Learning Folksonomies from Structured Data
cs.AI cs.CY cs.LG
Learning structured representations has emerged as an important problem in many domains, including document and Web data mining, bioinformatics, and image analysis. One approach to learning complex structures is to integrate many smaller, incomplete and noisy structure fragments. In this work, we present an unsupervised probabilistic approach that extends affinity propagation to combine the small ontological fragments into a collection of integrated, consistent, and larger folksonomies. This is a challenging task because the method must aggregate similar structures while avoiding structural inconsistencies and handling noise. We validate the approach on a real-world social media dataset, comprised of shallow personal hierarchies specified by many individual users, collected from the photosharing website Flickr. Our empirical results show that our proposed approach is able to construct deeper and denser structures, compared to an approach using only the standard affinity propagation algorithm. Additionally, the approach yields better overall integration quality than a state-of-the-art approach based on incremental relational clustering.
1011.3571
A Framework for Quantitative Analysis of Cascades on Networks
cs.SI cs.CY physics.soc-ph
How does information flow in online social networks? How does the structure and size of the information cascade evolve in time? How can we efficiently mine the information contained in cascade dynamics? We approach these questions empirically and present an efficient and scalable mathematical framework for quantitative analysis of cascades on networks. We define a cascade generating function that captures the details of the microscopic dynamics of the cascades. We show that this function can also be used to compute the macroscopic properties of cascades, such as their size, spread, diameter, number of paths, and average path length. We present an algorithm to efficiently compute cascade generating function and demonstrate that while significantly compressing information within a cascade, it nevertheless allows us to accurately reconstruct its structure. We use this framework to study information dynamics on the social network of Digg. Digg allows users to post and vote on stories, and easily see the stories that friends have voted on. As a story spreads on Digg through voting, it generates cascades. We extract cascades of more than 3,500 Digg stories and calculate their macroscopic and microscopic properties. We identify several trends in cascade dynamics: spreading via chaining, branching and community. We discuss how these affect the spread of the story through the Digg social network. Our computational framework is general and offers a practical solution to quantitative analysis of the microscopic structure of even very large cascades.
1011.3588
Distributed Interference Cancellation in Multiple Access Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider a Gaussian multiple access channel with multiple independent additive white Gaussian interferences. Each interference is known to exactly one transmitter non-causally. The capacity region is characterized to within a constant gap regardless of channel parameters. These results are based on a layered modulo-lattice scheme which realizes distributed interference cancellation.
1011.3595
Optimizing real-time RDF data streams
cs.AI cs.PF
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) provides a common data model for the integration of "real-time" social and sensor data streams with the Web and with each other. While there exist numerous protocols and data formats for exchanging dynamic RDF data, or RDF updates, these options should be examined carefully in order to enable a Semantic Web equivalent of the high-throughput, low-latency streams of typical Web 2.0, multimedia, and gaming applications. This paper contains a brief survey of RDF update formats and a high-level discussion of both TCP and UDP-based transport protocols for updates. Its main contribution is the experimental evaluation of a UDP-based architecture which serves as a real-world example of a high-performance RDF streaming application in an Internet-scale distributed environment.
1011.3710
Accuracy of Mean-Field Theory for Dynamics on Real-World Networks
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
Mean-field analysis is an important tool for understanding dynamics on complex networks. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question of whether mean-field predictions are accurate, and this is particularly true for real-world networks with clustering and modular structure. In this paper, we compare mean-field predictions to numerical simulation results for dynamical processes running on 21 real-world networks and demonstrate that the accuracy of the theory depends not only on the mean degree of the networks but also on the mean first-neighbor degree. We show that mean-field theory can give (unexpectedly) accurate results for certain dynamics on disassortative real-world networks even when the mean degree is as low as 4.
1011.3717
Random Beamforming over Quasi-Static and Fading Channels: A Deterministic Equivalent Approach
cs.IT math.IT
In this work, we study the performance of random isometric precoders over quasi-static and correlated fading channels. We derive deterministic approximations of the mutual information and the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the output of the minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) receiver and provide simple provably converging fixed-point algorithms for their computation. Although these approximations are only proven exact in the asymptotic regime with infinitely many antennas at the transmitters and receivers, simulations suggest that they closely match the performance of small-dimensional systems. We exemplarily apply our results to the performance analysis of multi-cellular communication systems, multiple-input multiple-output multiple-access channels (MIMO-MAC), and MIMO interference channels. The mathematical analysis is based on the Stieltjes transform method. This enables the derivation of deterministic equivalents of functionals of large-dimensional random matrices. In contrast to previous works, our analysis does not rely on arguments from free probability theory which enables the consideration of random matrix models for which asymptotic freeness does not hold. Thus, the results of this work are also a novel contribution to the field of random matrix theory and applicable to a wide spectrum of practical systems.
1011.3722
Statistical mechanical analysis of a hierarchical random code ensemble in signal processing
cond-mat.dis-nn cs.IT math.IT
We study a random code ensemble with a hierarchical structure, which is closely related to the generalized random energy model with discrete energy values. Based on this correspondence, we analyze the hierarchical random code ensemble by using the replica method in two situations: lossy data compression and channel coding. For both the situations, the exponents of large deviation analysis characterizing the performance of the ensemble, the distortion rate of lossy data compression and the error exponent of channel coding in Gallager's formalism, are accessible by a generating function of the generalized random energy model. We discuss that the transitions of those exponents observed in the preceding work can be interpreted as phase transitions with respect to the replica number. We also show that the replica symmetry breaking plays an essential role in these transitions.
1011.3728
PADDLE: Proximal Algorithm for Dual Dictionaries LEarning
cs.LG cs.IT math.IT stat.ML
Recently, considerable research efforts have been devoted to the design of methods to learn from data overcomplete dictionaries for sparse coding. However, learned dictionaries require the solution of an optimization problem for coding new data. In order to overcome this drawback, we propose an algorithm aimed at learning both a dictionary and its dual: a linear mapping directly performing the coding. By leveraging on proximal methods, our algorithm jointly minimizes the reconstruction error of the dictionary and the coding error of its dual; the sparsity of the representation is induced by an $\ell_1$-based penalty on its coefficients. The results obtained on synthetic data and real images show that the algorithm is capable of recovering the expected dictionaries. Furthermore, on a benchmark dataset, we show that the image features obtained from the dual matrix yield state-of-the-art classification performance while being much less computational intensive.
1011.3754
Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey
cs.IT math.IT
This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.
1011.3761
Lossy compression of discrete sources via Viterbi algorithm
cs.IT math.IT
We present a new lossy compressor for discrete-valued sources. For coding a sequence $x^n$, the encoder starts by assigning a certain cost to each possible reconstruction sequence. It then finds the one that minimizes this cost and describes it losslessly to the decoder via a universal lossless compressor. The cost of each sequence is a linear combination of its distance from the sequence $x^n$ and a linear function of its $k^{\rm th}$ order empirical distribution. The structure of the cost function allows the encoder to employ the Viterbi algorithm to recover the minimizer of the cost. We identify a choice of the coefficients comprising the linear function of the empirical distribution used in the cost function which ensures that the algorithm universally achieves the optimum rate-distortion performance of any stationary ergodic source in the limit of large $n$, provided that $k$ diverges as $o(\log n)$. Iterative techniques for approximating the coefficients, which alleviate the computational burden of finding the optimal coefficients, are proposed and studied.
1011.3768
Detecting and Tracking the Spread of Astroturf Memes in Microblog Streams
cs.SI cs.CY
Online social media are complementing and in some cases replacing person-to-person social interaction and redefining the diffusion of information. In particular, microblogs have become crucial grounds on which public relations, marketing, and political battles are fought. We introduce an extensible framework that will enable the real-time analysis of meme diffusion in social media by mining, visualizing, mapping, classifying, and modeling massive streams of public microblogging events. We describe a Web service that leverages this framework to track political memes in Twitter and help detect astroturfing, smear campaigns, and other misinformation in the context of U.S. political elections. We present some cases of abusive behaviors uncovered by our service. Finally, we discuss promising preliminary results on the detection of suspicious memes via supervised learning based on features extracted from the topology of the diffusion networks, sentiment analysis, and crowdsourced annotations.
1011.3812
Comments on Degrees of freedom region for $K$-user interference channel with $M$ antennas
cs.IT math.IT
For a $K$-user interference channel with $M$ antenna at each transmitter and each receiver, the maximum total DoF of this channel has been previously determined to be $\max \sum_{k=1}^K d_k = MK/2$. However, the DoF region remains to be unknown. In this short note, through a simple time-sharing argument, we obtain the degrees of freedom (DoF) region of this channel.
1011.3834
Ising-like agent-based technology diffusion model: adoption patterns vs. seeding strategies
physics.soc-ph cs.SI q-fin.TR
The well-known Ising model used in statistical physics was adapted to a social dynamics context to simulate the adoption of a technological innovation. The model explicitly combines (a) an individual's perception of the advantages of an innovation and (b) social influence from members of the decision-maker's social network. The micro-level adoption dynamics are embedded into an agent-based model that allows exploration of macro-level patterns of technology diffusion throughout systems with different configurations (number and distributions of early adopters, social network topologies). In the present work we carry out many numerical simulations. We find that when the gap between the individual's perception of the options is high, the adoption speed increases if the dispersion of early adopters grows. Another test was based on changing the network topology by means of stochastic connections to a common opinion reference (hub), which resulted in an increment in the adoption speed. Finally, we performed a simulation of competition between options for both regular and small world networks.
1011.3854
A probabilistic and RIPless theory of compressed sensing
cs.IT math.IT
This paper introduces a simple and very general theory of compressive sensing. In this theory, the sensing mechanism simply selects sensing vectors independently at random from a probability distribution F; it includes all models - e.g. Gaussian, frequency measurements - discussed in the literature, but also provides a framework for new measurement strategies as well. We prove that if the probability distribution F obeys a simple incoherence property and an isotropy property, one can faithfully recover approximately sparse signals from a minimal number of noisy measurements. The novelty is that our recovery results do not require the restricted isometry property (RIP) - they make use of a much weaker notion - or a random model for the signal. As an example, the paper shows that a signal with s nonzero entries can be faithfully recovered from about s log n Fourier coefficients that are contaminated with noise.
1011.3867
Interference Alignment Through User Cooperation for Two-cell MIMO Interfering Broadcast Channels
cs.IT math.IT
This paper focuses on two-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian interfering broadcast channels (MIMO-IFBC) with $K$ cooperating users on the cell-boundary of each BS. It corresponds to a downlink scenario for cellular networks with two base stations (BSs), and $K$ users equipped with Wi-Fi interfaces enabling to cooperate among users on a peer-to-peer basis. In this scenario, we propose a novel interference alignment (IA) technique exploiting user cooperation. Our proposed algorithm obtains the achievable degrees of freedom (DoF) of 2K when each BS and user have $M=K+1$ transmit antennas and $N=K$ receive antennas, respectively. Furthermore, the algorithm requires only a small amount of channel feedback information with the aid of the user cooperation channels. The simulations demonstrate that not only are the analytical results valid, but the achievable DoF of our proposed algorithm also outperforms those of conventional techniques.
1011.3870
Network error correction with unequal link capacities
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the capacity of single-source single-sink noiseless networks under adversarial or arbitrary errors on no more than z edges. Unlike prior papers, which assume equal capacities on all links, arbitrary link capacities are considered. Results include new upper bounds, network error correction coding strategies, and examples of network families where our bounds are tight. An example is provided of a network where the capacity is 50% greater than the best rate that can be achieved with linear coding. While coding at the source and sink suffices in networks with equal link capacities, in networks with unequal link capacities, it is shown that intermediate nodes may have to do coding, nonlinear error detection, or error correction in order to achieve the network error correction capacity.
1011.3878
On the Critical Coupling for Kuramoto Oscillators
math.DS cs.SY math-ph math.MP math.OC nlin.CD
The Kuramoto model captures various synchronization phenomena in biological and man-made systems of coupled oscillators. It is well-known that there exists a critical coupling strength among the oscillators at which a phase transition from incoherency to synchronization occurs. This paper features four contributions. First, we characterize and distinguish the different notions of synchronization used throughout the literature and formally introduce the concept of phase cohesiveness as an analysis tool and performance index for synchronization. Second, we review the vast literature providing necessary, sufficient, implicit, and explicit estimates of the critical coupling strength for finite and infinite-dimensional, and for first and second-order Kuramoto models. Third, we present the first explicit necessary and sufficient condition on the critical coupling to achieve synchronization in the finite-dimensional Kuramoto model for an arbitrary distribution of the natural frequencies. The multiplicative gap in the synchronization condition yields a practical stability result determining the admissible initial and the guaranteed ultimate phase cohesiveness as well as the guaranteed asymptotic magnitude of the order parameter. Fourth and finally, we extend our analysis to multi-rate Kuramoto models consisting of second-order Kuramoto oscillators with inertia and viscous damping together with first-order Kuramoto oscillators with multiple time constants. We prove that the multi-rate Kuramoto model is locally topologically conjugate to a first-order Kuramoto model with scaled natural frequencies, and we present necessary and sufficient conditions for almost global phase synchronization and local frequency synchronization. Interestingly, these conditions do not depend on the inertiae which contradicts prior observations on the role of inertiae in synchronization of second-order Kuramoto models.
1011.3879
Algebraic Watchdog: Mitigating Misbehavior in Wireless Network Coding
cs.CR cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
We propose a secure scheme for wireless network coding, called the algebraic watchdog. By enabling nodes to detect malicious behaviors probabilistically and use overheard messages to police their downstream neighbors locally, the algebraic watchdog delivers a secure global self-checking network. Unlike traditional Byzantine detection protocols which are receiver-based, this protocol gives the senders an active role in checking the node downstream. The key idea is inspired by Marti et al.'s watchdog-pathrater, which attempts to detect and mitigate the effects of routing misbehavior. As an initial building block of a such system, we first focus on a two-hop network. We present a graphical model to understand the inference process nodes execute to police their downstream neighbors; as well as to compute, analyze, and approximate the probabilities of misdetection and false detection. In addition, we present an algebraic analysis of the performance using an hypothesis testing framework that provides exact formulae for probabilities of false detection and misdetection. We then extend the algebraic watchdog to a more general network setting, and propose a protocol in which we can establish trust in coded systems in a distributed manner. We develop a graphical model to detect the presence of an adversarial node downstream within a general multi-hop network. The structure of the graphical model (a trellis) lends itself to well-known algorithms, such as the Viterbi algorithm, which can compute the probabilities of misdetection and false detection. We show analytically that as long as the min-cut is not dominated by the Byzantine adversaries, upstream nodes can monitor downstream neighbors and allow reliable communication with certain probability. Finally, we present simulation results that support our analysis.
1011.3890
Optimal Distributed Beamforming for MISO Interference Channels
cs.IT math.IT
We consider the problem of quantifying the Pareto optimal boundary in the achievable rate region over multiple-input single-output (MISO) interference channels, where the problem boils down to solving a sequence of convex feasibility problems after certain transformations. The feasibility problem is solved by two new distributed optimal beamforming algorithms, where the first one is to parallelize the computation based on the method of alternating projections, and the second one is to localize the computation based on the method of cyclic projections. Convergence proofs are established for both algorithms.
1011.3912
Artificial Hormone Reaction Networks: Towards Higher Evolvability in Evolutionary Multi-Modular Robotics
cs.RO cs.AI cs.NE
The semi-automatic or automatic synthesis of robot controller software is both desirable and challenging. Synthesis of rather simple behaviors such as collision avoidance by applying artificial evolution has been shown multiple times. However, the difficulty of this synthesis increases heavily with increasing complexity of the task that should be performed by the robot. We try to tackle this problem of complexity with Artificial Homeostatic Hormone Systems (AHHS), which provide both intrinsic, homeostatic processes and (transient) intrinsic, variant behavior. By using AHHS the need for pre-defined controller topologies or information about the field of application is minimized. We investigate how the principle design of the controller and the hormone network size affects the overall performance of the artificial evolution (i.e., evolvability). This is done by comparing two variants of AHHS that show different effects when mutated. We evolve a controller for a robot built from five autonomous, cooperating modules. The desired behavior is a form of gait resulting in fast locomotion by using the modules' main hinges.
1011.3970
From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design
cs.CY cs.CE physics.comp-ph physics.soc-ph
As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.
1011.3985
Perfect Secrecy Using Compressed Sensing
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
In this paper we consider the compressed sensing-based encryption and proposed the conditions in which the perfect secrecy is obtained. We prove when the Restricted Isometery Property (RIP) is hold and the number of measurements is more than two times of sparsity level i.e. M \geq 2k, the perfect secrecy condition introduced by Shannon is achievable if message block is not equal to zero or we have infinite block length
1011.4028
On the approximation ability of evolutionary optimization with application to minimum set cover
cs.NE
Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are heuristic algorithms inspired by natural evolution. They are often used to obtain satisficing solutions in practice. In this paper, we investigate a largely underexplored issue: the approximation performance of EAs in terms of how close the solution obtained is to an optimal solution. We study an EA framework named simple EA with isolated population (SEIP) that can be implemented as a single- or multi-objective EA. We analyze the approximation performance of SEIP using the partial ratio, which characterizes the approximation ratio that can be guaranteed. Specifically, we analyze SEIP using a set cover problem that is NP-hard. We find that in a simple configuration, SEIP efficiently achieves an $H_n$-approximation ratio, the asymptotic lower bound, for the unbounded set cover problem. We also find that SEIP efficiently achieves an $(H_k-\frac{k-1}/{8k^9})$-approximation ratio, the currently best-achievable result, for the k-set cover problem. Moreover, for an instance class of the k-set cover problem, we disclose how SEIP, using either one-bit or bit-wise mutation, can overcome the difficulty that limits the greedy algorithm.
1011.4058
Modeling Image Structure with Factorized Phase-Coupled Boltzmann Machines
cs.CV cond-mat.dis-nn q-bio.NC stat.ML
We describe a model for capturing the statistical structure of local amplitude and local spatial phase in natural images. The model is based on a recently developed, factorized third-order Boltzmann machine that was shown to be effective at capturing higher-order structure in images by modeling dependencies among squared filter outputs (Ranzato and Hinton, 2010). Here, we extend this model to $L_p$-spherically symmetric subspaces. In order to model local amplitude and phase structure in images, we focus on the case of two dimensional subspaces, and the $L_2$-norm. When trained on natural images the model learns subspaces resembling quadrature-pair Gabor filters. We then introduce an additional set of hidden units that model the dependencies among subspace phases. These hidden units form a combinatorial mixture of phase coupling distributions, concentrated in the sum and difference of phase pairs. When adapted to natural images, these distributions capture local spatial phase structure in natural images.
1011.4071
Supervised Random Walks: Predicting and Recommending Links in Social Networks
cs.SI cs.AI cs.DS physics.soc-ph stat.ML
Predicting the occurrence of links is a fundamental problem in networks. In the link prediction problem we are given a snapshot of a network and would like to infer which interactions among existing members are likely to occur in the near future or which existing interactions are we missing. Although this problem has been extensively studied, the challenge of how to effectively combine the information from the network structure with rich node and edge attribute data remains largely open. We develop an algorithm based on Supervised Random Walks that naturally combines the information from the network structure with node and edge level attributes. We achieve this by using these attributes to guide a random walk on the graph. We formulate a supervised learning task where the goal is to learn a function that assigns strengths to edges in the network such that a random walker is more likely to visit the nodes to which new links will be created in the future. We develop an efficient training algorithm to directly learn the edge strength estimation function. Our experiments on the Facebook social graph and large collaboration networks show that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art unsupervised approaches as well as approaches that are based on feature extraction.
1011.4098
Understanding Cascading Failures in Power Grids
cs.SI math.PR stat.AP
In the past, we have observed several large blackouts, i.e. loss of power to large areas. It has been noted by several researchers that these large blackouts are a result of a cascade of failures of various components. As a power grid is made up of several thousands or even millions of components (relays, breakers, transformers, etc.), it is quite plausible that a few of these components do not perform their function as desired. Their failure/misbehavior puts additional burden on the working components causing them to misbehave, and thus leading to a cascade of failures. The complexity of the entire power grid makes it difficult to model each and every individual component and study the stability of the entire system. For this reason, it is often the case that abstract models of the working of the power grid are constructed and then analyzed. These models need to be computationally tractable while serving as a reasonable model for the entire system. In this work, we construct one such model for the power grid, and analyze it.
1011.4104
Clustering and Latent Semantic Indexing Aspects of the Singular Value Decomposition
cs.LG cs.NA math.SP
This paper discusses clustering and latent semantic indexing (LSI) aspects of the singular value decomposition (SVD). The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to give an explanation on how and why the singular vectors can be used in clustering. And the second is to show that the two seemingly unrelated SVD aspects actually originate from the same source: related vertices tend to be more clustered in the graph representation of lower rank approximate matrix using the SVD than in the original semantic graph. Accordingly, the SVD can improve retrieval performance of an information retrieval system since queries made to the approximate matrix can retrieve more relevant documents and filter out more irrelevant documents than the same queries made to the original matrix. By utilizing this fact, we will devise an LSI algorithm that mimicks SVD capability in clustering related vertices. Convergence analysis shows that the algorithm is convergent and produces a unique solution for each input. Experimental results using some standard datasets in LSI research show that retrieval performances of the algorithm are comparable to the SVD's. In addition, the algorithm is more practical and easier to use because there is no need to determine decomposition rank which is crucial in driving retrieval performance of the SVD.
1011.4109
Design and simulation of a sigma delta ADC
cs.IT cs.AR math.IT
In this report we describe the design and simulation of a Sigma Delta ADC in Matlan/Simulink
1011.4155
Motifs de graphe pour le calcul de d\'ependances syntaxiques compl\`etes
cs.CL
This article describes a method to build syntactical dependencies starting from the phrase structure parsing process. The goal is to obtain all the information needed for a detailled semantical analysis. Interaction Grammars are used for parsing; the saturation of polarities which is the core of this formalism can be mapped to dependency relation. Formally, graph patterns are used to express the set of constraints which control dependency creations.
1011.4161
Community characterization of heterogeneous complex systems
physics.soc-ph cs.SI physics.data-an
We introduce an analytical statistical method to characterize the communities detected in heterogeneous complex systems. By posing a suitable null hypothesis, our method makes use of the hypergeometric distribution to assess the probability that a given property is over-expressed in the elements of a community with respect to all the elements of the investigated set. We apply our method to two specific complex networks, namely a network of world movies and a network of physics preprints. The characterization of the elements and of the communities is done in terms of languages and countries for the movie network and of journals and subject categories for papers. We find that our method is able to characterize clearly the identified communities. Moreover our method works well both for large and for small communities.
1011.4199
Biologically Inspired Design Principles for Scalable, Robust, Adaptive, Decentralized Search and Automated Response (RADAR)
cs.NE cs.DC cs.SY math.OC q-bio.QM
Distributed search problems are ubiquitous in Artificial Life (ALife). Many distributed search problems require identifying a rare and previously unseen event and producing a rapid response. This challenge amounts to finding and removing an unknown needle in a very large haystack. Traditional computational search models are unlikely to find, nonetheless, appropriately respond to, novel events, particularly given data distributed across multiple platforms in a variety of formats and sources with variable and unknown reliability. Biological systems have evolved solutions to distributed search and response under uncertainty. Immune systems and ant colonies efficiently scale up massively parallel search with automated response in highly dynamic environments, and both do so using distributed coordination without centralized control. These properties are relevant to ALife, where distributed, autonomous, robust and adaptive control is needed to design robot swarms, mobile computing networks, computer security systems and other distributed intelligent systems. They are also relevant for searching, tracking the spread of ideas, and understanding the impact of innovations in online social networks. We review design principles for Scalable Robust, Adaptive, Decentralized search with Automated Response (Scalable RADAR) in biology. We discuss how biological RADAR scales up efficiently, and then discuss in detail how modular search in the immune system can be mimicked or built upon in ALife. Such search mechanisms are particularly useful when components have limited capacity to communicate and social or physical distance makes long distance communication more costly.
1011.4237
Variational and symplectic approach of the model-free control
cs.SY math.OC
We propose a theoretical development of the model-free control in order to extend its robustness capabilities. The proposed method is based on the auto-tuning of the model-free controller parameter using an optimal approach. Some examples are discussed to illustrate our approach.
1011.4302
The Effects of Narrowband Interference on Finite-Resolution IR-UWB Digital Receiver
cs.IT math.IT
Finite-resolution digital receiver is recently considered as a potential way to Ultra Wide Band (UWB) communication systems due to its ability of mitigating the challenge of Analog-Digital Converter (ADC). In this paper, the effects of narrowband interference (NBI) are investigated when finite-resolution digital receiver is used for Impulse Radio-UWB (IR-UWB) system. It is shown that finite-resolution receiver enlarges the impact of NBI. The lower resolution of the UWB receiver is, the more degradations NBI causes.
1011.4321
A Fuzzy Clustering Model for Fuzzy Data with Outliers
cs.CV
In this paper a fuzzy clustering model for fuzzy data with outliers is proposed. The model is based on Wasserstein distance between interval valued data which is generalized to fuzzy data. In addition, Keller's approach is used to identify outliers and reduce their influences. We have also defined a transformation to change our distance to the Euclidean distance. With the help of this approach, the problem of fuzzy clustering of fuzzy data is reduced to fuzzy clustering of crisp data. In order to show the performance of the proposed clustering algorithm, two simulation experiments are discussed.
1011.4324
Moment-Based Spectral Analysis of Large-Scale Networks Using Local Structural Information
cs.SI cs.SY math.DS math.OC physics.data-an physics.soc-ph
The eigenvalues of matrices representing the structure of large-scale complex networks present a wide range of applications, from the analysis of dynamical processes taking place in the network to spectral techniques aiming to rank the importance of nodes in the network. A common approach to study the relationship between the structure of a network and its eigenvalues is to use synthetic random networks in which structural properties of interest, such as degree distributions, are prescribed. Although very common, synthetic models present two major flaws: (\emph{i}) These models are only suitable to study a very limited range of structural properties, and (\emph{ii}) they implicitly induce structural properties that are not directly controlled and can deceivingly influence the network eigenvalue spectrum. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach to overcome these limitations. Our approach is not based on synthetic models, instead, we use algebraic graph theory and convex optimization to study how structural properties influence the spectrum of eigenvalues of the network. Using our approach, we can compute with low computational overhead global spectral properties of a network from its local structural properties. We illustrate our approach by studying how structural properties of online social networks influence their eigenvalue spectra.
1011.4328
Graphical Models Concepts in Compressed Sensing
cs.IT math.IT
This paper surveys recent work in applying ideas from graphical models and message passing algorithms to solve large scale regularized regression problems. In particular, the focus is on compressed sensing reconstruction via ell_1 penalized least-squares (known as LASSO or BPDN). We discuss how to derive fast approximate message passing algorithms to solve this problem. Surprisingly, the analysis of such algorithms allows to prove exact high-dimensional limit results for the LASSO risk. This paper will appear as a chapter in a book on `Compressed Sensing' edited by Yonina Eldar and Gitta Kutyniok.
1011.4362
Should one compute the Temporal Difference fix point or minimize the Bellman Residual? The unified oblique projection view
cs.AI
We investigate projection methods, for evaluating a linear approximation of the value function of a policy in a Markov Decision Process context. We consider two popular approaches, the one-step Temporal Difference fix-point computation (TD(0)) and the Bellman Residual (BR) minimization. We describe examples, where each method outperforms the other. We highlight a simple relation between the objective function they minimize, and show that while BR enjoys a performance guarantee, TD(0) does not in general. We then propose a unified view in terms of oblique projections of the Bellman equation, which substantially simplifies and extends the characterization of (schoknecht,2002) and the recent analysis of (Yu & Bertsekas, 2008). Eventually, we describe some simulations that suggest that if the TD(0) solution is usually slightly better than the BR solution, its inherent numerical instability makes it very bad in some cases, and thus worse on average.
1011.4394
Measuring the Hierarchy of Feedforward Networks
physics.data-an cond-mat.dis-nn cs.SI nlin.AO physics.soc-ph
In this paper we explore the concept of hierarchy as a quantifiable descriptor of ordered structures, departing from the definition of three conditions to be satisfied for a hierarchical structure: {\em order}, {\em predictability} and {\em pyramidal structure}. According to these principles we define a hierarchical index taking concepts from graph and information theory. This estimator allows to quantify the hierarchical character of any system susceptible to be abstracted in a feedforward causal graph, i.e., a directed acyclic graph defined in a single connected structure. Our hierarchical index is a balance between this predictability and pyramidal condition by the definition of two entropies: one attending the onward flow and other for the backward reversion. We show how this index allows to identify hierarchical, anti-hierarchical and non hierarchical structures. Our formalism reveals that departing from the defined conditions for a hierarchical structure, feedforward trees and the inverted tree graphs emerge as the only causal structures of maximal hierarchical and anti-hierarchical systems, respectively. Conversely, null values of the hierarchical index are attributed to a number of different configuration networks; from linear chains, due to their lack of pyramid structure, to full-connected feedforward graphs where the diversity of onward pathways is canceled by the uncertainty (lack of predictability) when going backwards. Some illustrative examples are provided for the distinction among these three types of hierarchical causal graphs.
1011.4445
Voter model with non-Poissonian interevent intervals
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
Recent analysis of social communications among humans has revealed that the interval between interactions for a pair of individuals and for an individual often follows a long-tail distribution. We investigate the effect of such a non-Poissonian nature of human behavior on dynamics of opinion formation. We use a variant of the voter model and numerically compare the time to consensus of all the voters with different distributions of interevent intervals and different networks. Compared with the exponential distribution of interevent intervals (i.e., the standard voter model), the power-law distribution of interevent intervals slows down consensus on the ring. This is because of the memory effect; in the power-law case, the expected time until the next update event on a link is large if the link has not had an update event for a long time. On the complete graph, the consensus time in the power-law case is close to that in the exponential case. Regular graphs bridge these two results such that the slowing down of the consensus in the power-law case as compared to the exponential case is less pronounced as the degree increases.
1011.4532
New Algorithms on Wavelet Trees and Applications to Information Retrieval
cs.DS cs.IR
Wavelet trees are widely used in the representation of sequences, permutations, text collections, binary relations, discrete points, and other succinct data structures. We show, however, that this still falls short of exploiting all of the virtues of this versatile data structure. In particular we show how to use wavelet trees to solve fundamental algorithmic problems such as {\em range quantile} queries, {\em range next value} queries, and {\em range intersection} queries. We explore several applications of these queries in Information Retrieval, in particular {\em document retrieval} in hierarchical and temporal documents, and in the representation of {\em inverted lists}.
1011.4597
Energy-Efficient Precoding for Multiple-Antenna Terminals
cs.IT math.IT
The problem of energy-efficient precoding is investigated when the terminals in the system are equipped with multiple antennas. Considering static and fast-fading multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels, the energy-efficiency is defined as the transmission rate to power ratio and shown to be maximized at low transmit power. The most interesting case is the one of slow fading MIMO channels. For this type of channels, the optimal precoding scheme is generally not trivial. Furthermore, using all the available transmit power is not always optimal in the sense of energy-efficiency (which, in this case, corresponds to the communication-theoretic definition of the goodput-to-power (GPR) ratio). Finding the optimal precoding matrices is shown to be a new open problem and is solved in several special cases: 1. when there is only one receive antenna; 2. in the low or high signal-to-noise ratio regime; 3. when uniform power allocation and the regime of large numbers of antennas are assumed. A complete numerical analysis is provided to illustrate the derived results and stated conjectures. In particular, the impact of the number of antennas on the energy-efficiency is assessed and shown to be significant.
1011.4598
Power Allocation Games in Wireless Networks of Multi-antenna Terminals
cs.IT math.IT
We consider wireless networks that can be modeled by multiple access channels in which all the terminals are equipped with multiple antennas. The propagation model used to account for the effects of transmit and receive antenna correlations is the unitary-invariant-unitary model, which is one of the most general models available in the literature. In this context, we introduce and analyze two resource allocation games. In both games, the mobile stations selfishly choose their power allocation policies in order to maximize their individual uplink transmission rates; in particular they can ignore some specified centralized policies. In the first game considered, the base station implements successive interference cancellation (SIC) and each mobile station chooses his best space-time power allocation scheme; here, a coordination mechanism is used to indicate to the users the order in which the receiver applies SIC. In the second framework, the base station is assumed to implement single-user decoding. For these two games a thorough analysis of the Nash equilibrium is provided: the existence and uniqueness issues are addressed; the corresponding power allocation policies are determined by exploiting random matrix theory; the sum-rate efficiency of the equilibrium is studied analytically in the low and high signal-to-noise ratio regimes and by simulations in more typical scenarios. Simulations show that, in particular, the sum-rate efficiency is high for the type of systems investigated and the performance loss due to the use of the proposed suboptimum coordination mechanism is very small.
1011.4602
Gaussian Broadcast Channels with an Orthogonal and Bidirectional Cooperation Link
cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers a system where one transmitter broadcasts a single common message to two receivers linked by a bidirectional cooperation channel, which is assumed to be orthogonal to the downlink channel. Assuming a simplified setup where, in particular, scalar relaying protocols are used and channel coding is not exploited, we want to provide elements of response to several questions of practical interest. Here are the main underlying issues: 1. The way of recombining the signals at the receivers; 2. The optimal number of cooperation rounds; 3. The way of cooperating (symmetrically or asymmetrically; which receiver should start cooperating in the latter case); 4. The influence of spectral resources. These issues are considered by studying the performance of the assumed system through analytical results when they are derivable and through simulation results. For the particular choices we made, the results sometimes do not coincide with those available for the discrete counterpart of the studied channel.
1011.4609
Bounds from a Card Trick
cs.IT math.IT
We describe a new variation of a mathematical card trick, whose analysis leads to new lower bounds for data compression and estimating the entropy of Markov sources.
1011.4615
Generalized Tree-Based Wavelet Transform
cs.CV
In this paper we propose a new wavelet transform applicable to functions defined on graphs, high dimensional data and networks. The proposed method generalizes the Haar-like transform proposed in [1], and it is defined via a hierarchical tree, which is assumed to capture the geometry and structure of the input data. It is applied to the data using a modified version of the common one-dimensional (1D) wavelet filtering and decimation scheme, which can employ different wavelet filters. In each level of this wavelet decomposition scheme, a permutation derived from the tree is applied to the approximation coefficients, before they are filtered. We propose a tree construction method that results in an efficient representation of the input function in the transform domain. We show that the proposed transform is more efficient than both the 1D and two-dimensional (2D) separable wavelet transforms in representing images. We also explore the application of the proposed transform to image denoising, and show that combined with a subimage averaging scheme, it achieves denoising results which are similar to those obtained with the K-SVD algorithm.
1011.4623
Opinion Polarity Identification through Adjectives
cs.CL
"What other people think" has always been an important piece of information during various decision-making processes. Today people frequently make their opinions available via the Internet, and as a result, the Web has become an excellent source for gathering consumer opinions. There are now numerous Web resources containing such opinions, e.g., product reviews forums, discussion groups, and Blogs. But, due to the large amount of information and the wide range of sources, it is essentially impossible for a customer to read all of the reviews and make an informed decision on whether to purchase the product. It is also difficult for the manufacturer or seller of a product to accurately monitor customer opinions. For this reason, mining customer reviews, or opinion mining, has become an important issue for research in Web information extraction. One of the important topics in this research area is the identification of opinion polarity. The opinion polarity of a review is usually expressed with values 'positive', 'negative' or 'neutral'. We propose a technique for identifying polarity of reviews by identifying the polarity of the adjectives that appear in them. Our evaluation shows the technique can provide accuracy in the area of 73%, which is well above the 58%-64% provided by naive Bayesian classifiers.
1011.4632
Random Projections for $k$-means Clustering
cs.AI cs.DS
This paper discusses the topic of dimensionality reduction for $k$-means clustering. We prove that any set of $n$ points in $d$ dimensions (rows in a matrix $A \in \RR^{n \times d}$) can be projected into $t = \Omega(k / \eps^2)$ dimensions, for any $\eps \in (0,1/3)$, in $O(n d \lceil \eps^{-2} k/ \log(d) \rceil )$ time, such that with constant probability the optimal $k$-partition of the point set is preserved within a factor of $2+\eps$. The projection is done by post-multiplying $A$ with a $d \times t$ random matrix $R$ having entries $+1/\sqrt{t}$ or $-1/\sqrt{t}$ with equal probability. A numerical implementation of our technique and experiments on a large face images dataset verify the speed and the accuracy of our theoretical results.
1011.4644
Stochastic blockmodels with growing number of classes
math.ST cs.SI stat.ME stat.ML stat.TH
We present asymptotic and finite-sample results on the use of stochastic blockmodels for the analysis of network data. We show that the fraction of misclassified network nodes converges in probability to zero under maximum likelihood fitting when the number of classes is allowed to grow as the root of the network size and the average network degree grows at least poly-logarithmically in this size. We also establish finite-sample confidence bounds on maximum-likelihood blockmodel parameter estimates from data comprising independent Bernoulli random variates; these results hold uniformly over class assignment. We provide simulations verifying the conditions sufficient for our results, and conclude by fitting a logit parameterization of a stochastic blockmodel with covariates to a network data example comprising a collection of Facebook profiles, resulting in block estimates that reveal residual structure.
1011.4682
Analysis of attractor distances in Random Boolean Networks
cs.NE nlin.CD physics.bio-ph q-bio.QM
We study the properties of the distance between attractors in Random Boolean Networks, a prominent model of genetic regulatory networks. We define three distance measures, upon which attractor distance matrices are constructed and their main statistic parameters are computed. The experimental analysis shows that ordered networks have a very clustered set of attractors, while chaotic networks' attractors are scattered; critical networks show, instead, a pattern with characteristics of both ordered and chaotic networks.
1011.4725
Lossy Broadcasting in Two-Way Relay Networks with Common Reconstructions
cs.IT math.IT
The broadcast phase (downlink transmission) of the two-way relay network is studied in the source coding and joint source-channel coding settings. The rates needed for reliable communication are characterised for a number of special cases including: small distortions, deterministic distortion measures, and jointly Gaussian sources with quadratic distortion measures. The broadcast problem is also studied with common-reconstruction decoding constraints, and the rates needed for reliable communication are characterised for all discrete memoryless sources and per-letter distortion measures.
1011.4748
Combinatorial Network Optimization with Unknown Variables: Multi-Armed Bandits with Linear Rewards
math.OC cs.LG cs.NI math.PR
In the classic multi-armed bandits problem, the goal is to have a policy for dynamically operating arms that each yield stochastic rewards with unknown means. The key metric of interest is regret, defined as the gap between the expected total reward accumulated by an omniscient player that knows the reward means for each arm, and the expected total reward accumulated by the given policy. The policies presented in prior work have storage, computation and regret all growing linearly with the number of arms, which is not scalable when the number of arms is large. We consider in this work a broad class of multi-armed bandits with dependent arms that yield rewards as a linear combination of a set of unknown parameters. For this general framework, we present efficient policies that are shown to achieve regret that grows logarithmically with time, and polynomially in the number of unknown parameters (even though the number of dependent arms may grow exponentially). Furthermore, these policies only require storage that grows linearly in the number of unknown parameters. We show that this generalization is broadly applicable and useful for many interesting tasks in networks that can be formulated as tractable combinatorial optimization problems with linear objective functions, such as maximum weight matching, shortest path, and minimum spanning tree computations.
1011.4752
The Non-Bayesian Restless Multi-Armed Bandit: a Case of Near-Logarithmic Regret
math.OC cs.LG cs.NI math.PR
In the classic Bayesian restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, there are $N$ arms, with rewards on all arms evolving at each time as Markov chains with known parameters. A player seeks to activate $K \geq 1$ arms at each time in order to maximize the expected total reward obtained over multiple plays. RMAB is a challenging problem that is known to be PSPACE-hard in general. We consider in this work the even harder non-Bayesian RMAB, in which the parameters of the Markov chain are assumed to be unknown \emph{a priori}. We develop an original approach to this problem that is applicable when the corresponding Bayesian problem has the structure that, depending on the known parameter values, the optimal solution is one of a prescribed finite set of policies. In such settings, we propose to learn the optimal policy for the non-Bayesian RMAB by employing a suitable meta-policy which treats each policy from this finite set as an arm in a different non-Bayesian multi-armed bandit problem for which a single-arm selection policy is optimal. We demonstrate this approach by developing a novel sensing policy for opportunistic spectrum access over unknown dynamic channels. We prove that our policy achieves near-logarithmic regret (the difference in expected reward compared to a model-aware genie), which leads to the same average reward that can be achieved by the optimal policy under a known model. This is the first such result in the literature for a non-Bayesian RMAB.
1011.4792
Pair-wise Markov Random Fields Applied to the Design of Low Complexity MIMO Detectors
cs.IT math.IT
Pair-wise Markov random fields (MRF) are considered for application to the development of low complexity, iterative MIMO detection. Specifically, we consider two types of MRF, namely, the fully-connected and ring-type. For the edge potentials, we use the bivariate Gaussian function obtained by marginalizing the posterior joint probability density under the Gaussian assumption. Since the corresponding factor graphs are sparse, in the sense that the number of edges connected to a factor node (edge degree) is only 2, the computations are much easier than that of ML, which is similar to the belief propagation (BP), or sum-product, algorithm that is run over the fully connected factor graph. The BER performances for non-Gaussian input are evaluated via simulation, and the results show the validity of the proposed algorithms. We also customize the algorithm for Gaussian input to obtain the Gaussian BP that is run over the two MRF and proves its convergence in mean to the linear MMSE estimates. The result lies on the same line of those in [16] and [24], but with differences in its graphical model and the message passing rule. Since the MAP estimator for the Gaussian input is equivalent to the linear MMSE estimator, it shows the optimality, in mean, of the scheme for Gaussian input.