id
stringlengths
9
16
title
stringlengths
4
278
categories
stringlengths
5
104
abstract
stringlengths
6
4.09k
1101.0305
Measuring support for a hypothesis about a random parameter without estimating its unknown prior
math.ST cs.IT math.IT q-bio.QM stat.ME stat.TH
For frequentist settings in which parameter randomness represents variability rather than uncertainty, the ideal measure of the support for one hypothesis over another is the difference in the posterior and prior log odds. For situations in which the prior distribution cannot be accurately estimated, that ideal support may be replaced by another measure of support, which may be any predictor of the ideal support that, on a per-observation basis, is asymptotically unbiased. Two qualifying measures of support are defined. The first is minimax optimal with respect to the population and is equivalent to a particular Bayes factor. The second is worst-sample minimax optimal and is equivalent to the normalized maximum likelihood. It has been extended by likelihood weights for compatibility with more general models. One such model is that of two independent normal samples, the standard setting for gene expression microarray data analysis. Applying that model to proteomics data indicates that support computed from data for a single protein can closely approximate the estimated difference in posterior and prior odds that would be available with the data for 20 proteins. This suggests the applicability of random-parameter models to other situations in which the parameter distribution cannot be reliably estimated.
1101.0306
The Degrees of Freedom Regions of Two-User and Certain Three-User MIMO Broadcast Channels with Delayed CSIT
cs.IT math.IT
The degrees of freedom (DoF) region of the fast-fading MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) Gaussian broadcast channel (BC) is studied when there is delayed channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). In this setting, the channel matrices are assumed to vary independently across time and the transmitter is assumed to know the channel matrices with some arbitrary finite delay. An outer-bound to the DoF region of the general $K$-user MIMO BC (with an arbitrary number of antennas at each terminal) is derived. This outer-bound is then shown to be tight for two classes of MIMO BCs, namely, (a) the two-user MIMO BC with arbitrary number of antennas at all terminals, and (b) for certain three-user MIMO BCs where all three receivers have an equal number of antennas and the transmitter has no more than twice the number of antennas present at each receivers. The achievability results are obtained by developing an interference alignment scheme that optimally accounts for multiple, and possibly distinct, number of antennas at the receivers.
1101.0309
Concrete Sentence Spaces for Compositional Distributional Models of Meaning
cs.CL cs.AI cs.IR
Coecke, Sadrzadeh, and Clark (arXiv:1003.4394v1 [cs.CL]) developed a compositional model of meaning for distributional semantics, in which each word in a sentence has a meaning vector and the distributional meaning of the sentence is a function of the tensor products of the word vectors. Abstractly speaking, this function is the morphism corresponding to the grammatical structure of the sentence in the category of finite dimensional vector spaces. In this paper, we provide a concrete method for implementing this linear meaning map, by constructing a corpus-based vector space for the type of sentence. Our construction method is based on structured vector spaces whereby meaning vectors of all sentences, regardless of their grammatical structure, live in the same vector space. Our proposed sentence space is the tensor product of two noun spaces, in which the basis vectors are pairs of words each augmented with a grammatical role. This enables us to compare meanings of sentences by simply taking the inner product of their vectors.
1101.0327
On the Performance of Selection Cooperation with Imperfect Channel Estimation
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate the performance of selection cooperation in the presence of imperfect channel estimation. In particular, we consider a cooperative scenario with multiple relays and amplify-and- forward protocol over frequency flat fading channels. In the selection scheme, only the "best" relay which maximizes the effective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver end is selected. We present lower and upper bounds on the effective SNR and derive closed-form expressions for the average symbol error rate (ASER), outage probability and average capacity per bandwidth of the received signal in the presence of channel estimation errors. A simulation study is presented to corroborate the analytical results and to demonstrate the performance of relay selection with imperfect channel estimation.
1101.0339
Lattice Sequential Decoding for LAST Coded MIMO Channels: Achievable Rate, DMT, and Complexity Analysis
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, the asymptotic performance of the lattice sequential decoder for LAttice Space-Time (LAST) coded MIMO channel is analyzed. We determine the rates achievable by lattice coding and sequential decoding applied to such a channel. The diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) under lattice sequential decoding is derived as a function of its parameter---the bias term, which is critical for controlling the amount of computations required at the decoding stage. Achieving low decoding complexity requires increasing the value of the bias term. However, this is done at the expense of losing the optimal tradeoff of the channel. In this work, we derive the tail distribution of the decoder's computational complexity in the high signal-to-noise ratio regime. Our analysis reveals that the tail distribution of such a low complexity decoder is dominated by the outage probability of the channel for the underlying coding scheme. Also, the tail exponent of the complexity distribution is shown to be equivalent to the DMT achieved by lattice coding and lattice sequential decoding schemes. We derive the asymptotic average complexity of the sequential decoder as a function of the system parameters. In particular, we show that there exists a cut-off multiplexing gain for which the average computational complexity of the decoder remains bounded.
1101.0345
Diffusion of Confidential Information on Networks
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
This is a natural generalization of the previous work by Dan, "Modeling and Simulation of Diffusion Phenomena on Social Networks," to appear in The proceedings of 2011 Third International Conference on Computer Modeling and Simulation. In this paper, we consider the diffusion phenomena of personal or secret information on the variety of networks, such as complete, random, stochastic and scale-free networks.
1101.0350
Graffiti Networks: A Subversive, Internet-Scale File Sharing Model
cs.NI cs.DB
The proliferation of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocols is due to their efficient and scalable methods for data dissemination to numerous users. But many of these networks have no provisions to provide users with long term access to files after the initial interest has diminished, nor are they able to guarantee protection for users from malicious clients that wish to implicate them in incriminating activities. As such, users may turn to supplementary measures for storing and transferring data in P2P systems. We present a new file sharing paradigm, called a Graffiti Network, which allows peers to harness the potentially unlimited storage of the Internet as a third-party intermediary. Our key contributions in this paper are (1) an overview of a distributed system based on this new threat model and (2) a measurement of its viability through a one-year deployment study using a popular web-publishing platform. The results of this experiment motivate a discussion about the challenges of mitigating this type of file sharing in a hostile network environment and how web site operators can protect their resources.
1101.0362
An Adaptive Quantum-inspired Differential Evolution Algorithm for 0-1 Knapsack Problem
cs.NE
Differential evolution (DE) is a population based evolutionary algorithm widely used for solving multidimensional global optimization problems over continuous spaces. However, the design of its operators makes it unsuitable for many real-life constrained combinatorial optimization problems which operate on binary space. On the other hand, the quantum inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA) is very well suitable for handling such problems by applying several quantum computing techniques such as Q-bit representation and rotation gate operator, etc. This paper extends the concept of differential operators with adaptive parameter control to the quantum paradigm and proposes the adaptive quantum-inspired differential evolution algorithm (AQDE). The performance of AQDE is found to be significantly superior as compared to QEA and a discrete version of DE on the standard 0-1 knapsack problem for all the considered test cases.
1101.0377
Circadian pattern and burstiness in mobile phone communication
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
The temporal communication patterns of human individuals are known to be inhomogeneous or bursty, which is reflected as the heavy tail behavior in the inter-event time distribution. As the cause of such bursty behavior two main mechanisms have been suggested: a) Inhomogeneities due to the circadian and weekly activity patterns and b) inhomogeneities rooted in human task execution behavior. Here we investigate the roles of these mechanisms by developing and then applying systematic de-seasoning methods to remove the circadian and weekly patterns from the time-series of mobile phone communication events of individuals. We find that the heavy tails in the inter-event time distributions remain robustly with respect to this procedure, which clearly indicates that the human task execution based mechanism is a possible cause for the remaining burstiness in temporal mobile phone communication patterns.
1101.0380
Critical behavior and correlations on scale-free small-world networks. Application to network design
cond-mat.dis-nn cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI physics.soc-ph
We analyze critical phenomena on networks generated as the union of hidden variables models (networks with any desired degree sequence) with arbitrary graphs. The resulting networks are general small-worlds similar to those a` la Watts and Strogatz but with a heterogeneous degree distribution. We prove that the critical behavior (thermal or percolative) remains completely unchanged by the presence of finite loops (or finite clustering). Then, we show that, in large but finite networks, correlations of two given spins may be strong, i.e., approximately power law like, at any temperature. Quite interestingly, if $\gamma$ is the exponent for the power law distribution of the vertex degree, for $\gamma\leq 3$ and with or without short-range couplings, such strong correlations persist even in the thermodynamic limit, contradicting the common opinion that in mean-field models correlations always disappear in this limit. Finally, we provide the optimal choice of rewiring under which percolation phenomena in the rewired network are best performed; a natural criterion to reach best communication features, at least in non congested regimes.
1101.0382
Reduction in Solving Some Integer Least Squares Problems
math.OC cs.DS cs.NA cs.SY math.NA
Solving an integer least squares (ILS) problem usually consists of two stages: reduction and search. This thesis is concerned with the reduction process for the ordinary ILS problem and the ellipsoid-constrained ILS problem. For the ordinary ILS problem, we dispel common misconceptions on the reduction stage in the literature and show what is crucial to the efficiency of the search process. The new understanding allows us to design a new reduction algorithm which is more efficient than the well-known LLL reduction algorithm. Numerical stability is taken into account in designing the new reduction algorithm. For the ellipsoid-constrained ILS problem, we propose a new reduction algorithm which, unlike existing algorithms, uses all the available information. Simulation results indicate that new algorithm can greatly reduce the computational cost of the search process when the measurement noise is large.
1101.0384
Combining Neural Networks for Skin Detection
cs.CV
Two types of combining strategies were evaluated namely combining skin features and combining skin classifiers. Several combining rules were applied where the outputs of the skin classifiers are combined using binary operators such as the AND and the OR operators, "Voting", "Sum of Weights" and a new neural network. Three chrominance components from the YCbCr colour space that gave the highest correct detection on their single feature MLP were selected as the combining parameters. A major issue in designing a MLP neural network is to determine the optimal number of hidden units given a set of training patterns. Therefore, a "coarse to fine search" method to find the number of neurons in the hidden layer is proposed. The strategy of combining Cb/Cr and Cr features improved the correct detection by 3.01% compared to the best single feature MLP given by Cb-Cr. The strategy of combining the outputs of three skin classifiers using the "Sum of Weights" rule further improved the correct detection by 4.38% compared to the best single feature MLP.
1101.0407
Interconnecting bilayer networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
A typical complex system should be described by a supernetwork or a network of networks, in which the networks are coupled to some other networks. As the first step to understanding the complex systems on such more systematic level, scientists studied interdependent multilayer networks. In this letter, we introduce a new kind of interdependent multilayer networks, i.e., interconnecting networks, for which the component networks are coupled each other by sharing some common nodes. Based on the empirical investigations, we revealed a common feature of such interconnecting networks, namely, the networks with smaller averaged topological differences of the interconnecting nodes tend to share more nodes. A very simple node sharing mechanism is proposed to analytically explain the observed feature of the interconnecting networks.
1101.0428
The Local Optimality of Reinforcement Learning by Value Gradients, and its Relationship to Policy Gradient Learning
cs.LG cs.AI
In this theoretical paper we are concerned with the problem of learning a value function by a smooth general function approximator, to solve a deterministic episodic control problem in a large continuous state space. It is shown that learning the gradient of the value-function at every point along a trajectory generated by a greedy policy is a sufficient condition for the trajectory to be locally extremal, and often locally optimal, and we argue that this brings greater efficiency to value-function learning. This contrasts to traditional value-function learning in which the value-function must be learnt over the whole of state space. It is also proven that policy-gradient learning applied to a greedy policy on a value-function produces a weight update equivalent to a value-gradient weight update, which provides a surprising connection between these two alternative paradigms of reinforcement learning, and a convergence proof for control problems with a value function represented by a general smooth function approximator.
1101.0457
Segmentation of Camera Captured Business Card Images for Mobile Devices
cs.CV
Due to huge deformation in the camera captured images, variety in nature of the business cards and the computational constraints of the mobile devices, design of an efficient Business Card Reader (BCR) is challenging to the researchers. Extraction of text regions and segmenting them into characters is one of such challenges. In this paper, we have presented an efficient character segmentation technique for business card images captured by a cell-phone camera, designed in our present work towards developing an efficient BCR. At first, text regions are extracted from the card images and then the skewed ones are corrected using a computationally efficient skew correction technique. At last, these skew corrected text regions are segmented into lines and characters based on horizontal and vertical histogram. Experiments show that the present technique is efficient and applicable for mobile devices, and the mean segmentation accuracy of 97.48% is achieved with 3 mega-pixel (500-600 dpi) images. It takes only 1.1 seconds for segmentation including all the preprocessing steps on a moderately powerful notebook (DualCore T2370, 1.73 GHz, 1GB RAM, 1MB L2 Cache).
1101.0461
Distributive Network Utility Maximization (NUM) over Time-Varying Fading Channels
cs.IT math.IT
Distributed network utility maximization (NUM) has received an increasing intensity of interest over the past few years. Distributed solutions (e.g., the primal-dual gradient method) have been intensively investigated under fading channels. As such distributed solutions involve iterative updating and explicit message passing, it is unrealistic to assume that the wireless channel remains unchanged during the iterations. Unfortunately, the behavior of those distributed solutions under time-varying channels is in general unknown. In this paper, we shall investigate the convergence behavior and tracking errors of the iterative primal-dual scaled gradient algorithm (PDSGA) with dynamic scaling matrices (DSC) for solving distributive NUM problems under time-varying fading channels. We shall also study a specific application example, namely the multi-commodity flow control and multi-carrier power allocation problem in multi-hop ad hoc networks. Our analysis shows that the PDSGA converges to a limit region rather than a single point under the finite state Markov chain (FSMC) fading channels. We also show that the order of growth of the tracking errors is given by O(T/N), where T and N are the update interval and the average sojourn time of the FSMC, respectively. Based on this analysis, we derive a low complexity distributive adaptation algorithm for determining the adaptive scaling matrices, which can be implemented distributively at each transmitter. The numerical results show the superior performance of the proposed dynamic scaling matrix algorithm over several baseline schemes, such as the regular primal-dual gradient algorithm.
1101.0510
Good Friends, Bad News - Affect and Virality in Twitter
cs.SI cs.CL physics.soc-ph
The link between affect, defined as the capacity for sentimental arousal on the part of a message, and virality, defined as the probability that it be sent along, is of significant theoretical and practical importance, e.g. for viral marketing. A quantitative study of emailing of articles from the NY Times finds a strong link between positive affect and virality, and, based on psychological theories it is concluded that this relation is universally valid. The conclusion appears to be in contrast with classic theory of diffusion in news media emphasizing negative affect as promoting propagation. In this paper we explore the apparent paradox in a quantitative analysis of information diffusion on Twitter. Twitter is interesting in this context as it has been shown to present both the characteristics social and news media. The basic measure of virality in Twitter is the probability of retweet. Twitter is different from email in that retweeting does not depend on pre-existing social relations, but often occur among strangers, thus in this respect Twitter may be more similar to traditional news media. We therefore hypothesize that negative news content is more likely to be retweeted, while for non-news tweets positive sentiments support virality. To test the hypothesis we analyze three corpora: A complete sample of tweets about the COP15 climate summit, a random sample of tweets, and a general text corpus including news. The latter allows us to train a classifier that can distinguish tweets that carry news and non-news information. We present evidence that negative sentiment enhances virality in the news segment, but not in the non-news segment. We conclude that the relation between affect and virality is more complex than expected based on the findings of Berger and Milkman (2010), in short 'if you want to be cited: Sweet talk your friends or serve bad news to the public'.
1101.0529
Channel Optimized Distributed Multiple Description Coding
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, channel optimized distributed multiple description vector quantization (CDMD) schemes are presented for distributed source coding in symmetric and asymmetric settings. The CDMD encoder is designed using a deterministic annealing approach over noisy channels with packet loss. A minimum mean squared error asymmetric CDMD decoder is proposed for effective reconstruction of a source, utilizing the side information (SI) and its corresponding received descriptions. The proposed iterative symmetric CDMD decoder jointly reconstructs the symbols of multiple correlated sources. Two types of symmetric CDMD decoders, namely the estimated-SI and the soft-SI decoders, are presented which respectively exploit the reconstructed symbols and a posteriori probabilities of other sources as SI in iterations. In a multiple source CDMD setting, for reconstruction of a source, three methods are proposed to select another source as its SI during the decoding. The methods operate based on minimum physical distance (in a wireless sensor network setting), maximum mutual information and minimum end-to-end distortion. The performance of the proposed systems and algorithms are evaluated and compared in detail.
1101.0613
Distributed Collections of Web Pages in the Wild
cs.DL cs.HC cs.SI
As the Distributed Collection Manager's work on building tools to support users maintaining collections of changing web-based resources has progressed, questions about the characteristics of people's collections of web pages have arisen. Simultaneously, work in the areas of social bookmarking, social news, and subscription-based technologies have been taking the existence, usage, and utility of this data for granted with neither investigation into what people are doing with their collections nor how they are trying to maintain them. In order to address these concerns, we performed an online user study of 125 individuals from a variety of online and offline communities, such as the reddit social news user community and the graduate student body in our department. From this study we were able to examine a user's needs for a system to manage their web-based distributed collections, how their current tools affect their ability to maintain their collections, and what the characteristics of their current practices and problems in maintaining their web-based collections were. We also present extensions and improvements being made to the system both in order to adapt DCM for usage in the Ensemble project and to meet the requirements found by our user study.
1101.0640
A note on outer bounds for broadcast channel
cs.IT math.IT
In this note we establish two facts concerning the so-called {\em New-Jersey} outer bound. We show that this outer bound is equivalent to a much simpler {\em computable} region; and secondly we show that in the absence of private information this bound is exactly same as the $UV$-outerbound.
1101.0653
On the Performance of Selection Cooperation with Outdated CSI and Channel Estimation Errors
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate the performance of selection cooperation in the presence of imperfect channel estimation. In particular, we consider a cooperative scenario with multiple relays and amplify-and-forward protocol over frequency flat fading channels. In the selection scheme, only the "best" relay which maximizes the effective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver end is selected. We present lower and upper bounds on the effective SNR and derive closed-form expressions for the average symbol error rate (ASER), outage probability and average capacity per bandwidth of the received signal in the presence of channel estimation errors. A simulation study is presented to corroborate the analytical results and to demonstrate the performance of relay selection with imperfect channel estimation.
1101.0656
Evolution of Chinese airport network
stat.AP cs.SI physics.soc-ph
With the rapid development of economy and the accelerated globalization process, the aviation industry plays more and more critical role in today's world, in both developed and developing countries. As the infrastructure of aviation industry, the airport network is one of the most important indicators of economic growth. In this paper, we investigate the evolution of Chinese airport network (CAN) via complex network theory. It is found that although the topology of CAN remains steady during the past several years, there are many dynamic switchings inside the network, which changes the relative relevance of airports and airlines. Moreover, we investigate the evolution of traffic flow (passengers and cargoes) on CAN. It is found that the traffic keeps growing in an exponential form and it has evident seasonal fluctuations. We also found that cargo traffic and passenger traffic are positively related but the correlations are quite different for different kinds of cities.
1101.0679
Status of GDL - GNU Data Language
astro-ph.IM cs.CE
GNU Data Language (GDL) is an open-source interpreted language aimed at numerical data analysis and visualisation. It is a free implementation of the Interactive Data Language (IDL) widely used in Astronomy. GDL has a full syntax compatibility with IDL, and includes a large set of library routines targeting advanced matrix manipulation, plotting, time-series and image analysis, mapping, and data input/output including numerous scientific data formats. We will present the current status of the project, the key accomplishments, and the weaknesses - areas where contributions are welcome !
1101.0698
Best Effort and Practice Activation Codes
cs.CR cs.CE
Activation Codes are used in many different digital services and known by many different names including voucher, e-coupon and discount code. In this paper we focus on a specific class of ACs that are short, human-readable, fixed-length and represent value. Even though this class of codes is extensively used there are no general guidelines for the design of Activation Code schemes. We discuss different methods that are used in practice and propose BEPAC, a new Activation Code scheme that provides both authenticity and confidentiality. The small message space of activation codes introduces some problems that are illustrated by an adaptive chosen-plaintext attack (CPA-2) on a general 3-round Feis- tel network of size 2^(2n) . This attack recovers the complete permutation from at most 2^(n+2) plaintext-ciphertext pairs. For this reason, BEPAC is designed in such a way that authenticity and confidentiality are in- dependent properties, i.e. loss of confidentiality does not imply loss of authenticity.
1101.0764
Binary Polar Code Kernels from Code Decompositions
cs.IT math.IT
Code decompositions (a.k.a code nestings) are used to design good binary polar code kernels. The proposed kernels are in general non-linear and show a better rate of polarization under successive cancelation decoding, than the ones suggested by Korada et al., for the same kernel dimensions. In particular, kernels of sizes 14, 15 and 16 are constructed and shown to provide polarization rates better than any binary kernel of such sizes.
1101.0766
Information Retrieval of Jumbled Words
cs.IR
It is known that humans can easily read words where the letters have been jumbled in a certain way. This paper examines this problem by associating a distance measure with the jumbling process. Modifications to text were generated according to the Damerau-Levenshtein distance and it was checked if the users are able to read it. Graphical representations of the results are provided.
1101.0776
Multiplicative Drift Analysis
cs.NE
In this work, we introduce multiplicative drift analysis as a suitable way to analyze the runtime of randomized search heuristics such as evolutionary algorithms. We give a multiplicative version of the classical drift theorem. This allows easier analyses in those settings where the optimization progress is roughly proportional to the current distance to the optimum. To display the strength of this tool, we regard the classical problem how the (1+1) Evolutionary Algorithm optimizes an arbitrary linear pseudo-Boolean function. Here, we first give a relatively simple proof for the fact that any linear function is optimized in expected time $O(n \log n)$, where $n$ is the length of the bit string. Afterwards, we show that in fact any such function is optimized in expected time at most ${(1+o(1)) 1.39 \euler n\ln (n)}$, again using multiplicative drift analysis. We also prove a corresponding lower bound of ${(1-o(1))e n\ln(n)}$ which actually holds for all functions with a unique global optimum. We further demonstrate how our drift theorem immediately gives natural proofs (with better constants) for the best known runtime bounds for the (1+1) Evolutionary Algorithm on combinatorial problems like finding minimum spanning trees, shortest paths, or Euler tours.
1101.0788
Valued Ties Tell Fewer Lies: Why Not To Dichotomize Network Edges With Thresholds
stat.AP cs.SI physics.soc-ph
In order to conduct analyses of networked systems where connections between individuals take on a range of values - counts, continuous strengths or ordinal rankings - a common technique is to dichotomize the data according to their positions with respect to a threshold value. However, there are two issues to consider: how the results of the analysis depend on the choice of threshold, and what role the presence of noise has on a system with respect to a fixed threshold value. We show that while there are principled criteria of keeping information from the valued graph in the dichotomized version, they produce such a wide range of binary graphs that only a fraction of the relevant information will be kept. Additionally, while dichotomization of predictors in linear models has a known asymptotic efficiency loss, the same process applied to network edges in a time series model will lead to an efficiency loss that grows larger as the network increases in size.
1101.0820
Emotionally Colorful Reflexive Games
cs.MA
This study addresses the matter of reflexive control of the emotional states by means of Reflexive Game Theory (RGT). It is shown how to build a bridge between RGT and emotions. For this purpose the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) model is adopted. The major advantages of RGT are its ability to predict human behavior and unfold the entire spectra of reflexion in the human mind. On the other hand, PAD provides ultimate approach to model emotions. It is illustrated that emotions are reflexive processes and, consequently, RGT fused with PAD model is natural solution to model emotional interactions between people. The fusion of RGT and PAD, called Emotional Reflexive Games (ERG), inherits the key features of both components. Using ERG, we show how reflexive control can be successfully applied to model human emotional states. Up to date, EGR is a unique methodology capable of modeling human reflexive processes and emotional aspects simultaneously.
1101.0833
Dynamical systems, simulation, abstract computation
math.DS cs.CE nlin.CD
We survey an area of recent development, relating dynamics to theoretical computer science. We discuss the theoretical limits of simulation and computation of interesting quantities in dynamical systems. We will focus on central objects of the theory of dynamics, as invariant measures and invariant sets, showing that even if they can be computed with arbitrary precision in many interesting cases, there exists some cases in which they can not. We also explain how it is possible to compute the speed of convergence of ergodic averages (when the system is known exactly) and how this entails the computation of arbitrarily good approximations of points of the space having typical statistical behaviour (a sort of constructive version of the pointwise ergodic theorem).
1101.0854
Improved Achievable Rates for Regularized Tomlinson-Harashima Precoding in Multiuser MIMO Downlink
cs.IT math.IT
Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP) is considered as a prominent precoding scheme due to its capability to efficiently cancel out the known interference at the transmitter side. Therefore, the information rates achieved by THP are superior to those achieved by conventional linear precoding schemes. In this paper, a new lower bound on the achievable information rate for the regularized THP scheme under additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel with multiuser interference is derived. Analytical results show that the lower bound derived in this paper is tighter than the original lower bound particularly for a low SNR range, while all lower bounds converge to 0.5xlog2(6SNR/{\pi}e) as SNR approaches infinity.
1101.0855
Lattice Reduction Aided Precoding for Multiuser MIMO using Seysen's Algorithm
cs.IT math.IT
Lenstra-Lenstra-Lovasz (LLL) algorithm, which is one of the lattice reduction (LR) techniques, has been extensively used to obtain better basis of the channel matrix. In this paper, we jointly apply Seysen's lattice reduction algorithm (SA), instead of LLL, with the conventional linear precoding algorithms. Since SA obtains more orthogonal lattice basis compared to that obtained by LLL, lattice reduction aided (LRA) precoding based on SA algorithm outperforms the LRA precoding with LLL. Simulation results demonstrate that a gain of 0.5dB at target BER of 10^-5 is achieved when SA is used instead of LLL for the LR stage.
1101.0906
Energy Efficiency and Reliability in Wireless Biomedical Implant Systems
cs.IT math.IT
The use of wireless implant technology requires correct delivery of the vital physiological signs of the patient along with the energy management in power-constrained devices. Toward these goals, we present an augmentation protocol for the physical layer of the Medical Implant Communications Service (MICS) with focus on the energy efficiency of deployed devices over the MICS frequency band. The present protocol uses the rateless code with the Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) modulation scheme to overcome the reliability and power cost concerns in tiny implantable sensors due to the considerable attenuation of propagated signals across the human body. In addition, the protocol allows a fast start-up time for the transceiver circuitry. The main advantage of using rateless codes is to provide an inherent adaptive duty-cycling for power management, due to the flexibility of the rateless code rate. Analytical results demonstrate that an 80% energy saving is achievable with the proposed protocol when compared to the IEEE 802.15.4 physical layer standard with the same structure used for wireless sensor networks. Numerical results show that the optimized rateless coded FSK is more energy efficient than that of the uncoded FSK scheme for deep tissue (e.g., digestive endoscopy) applications, where the optimization is performed over modulation and coding parameters.
1101.0970
Asymmetric Quantizers Are Better at Low SNR
cs.IT math.IT
We study the behavior of channel capacity when a one-bit quantizer is employed at the output of the discrete-time average-power-limited Gaussian channel. We focus on the low signal-to-noise ratio regime, where communication at very low spectral efficiencies takes place, as in Spread-Spectrum and Ultra-Wideband communications. It is well know that, in this regime, a symmetric one-bit quantizer reduces capacity by 2/pi, which translates to a power loss of approximately two decibels. Here we show that if an asymmetric one-bit quantizer is employed, and if asymmetric signal constellations are used, then these two decibels can be recovered in full.
1101.1001
Extreme Eigenvalue Distributions of Some Complex Correlated Non-Central Wishart and Gamma-Wishart Random Matrices
math.ST cs.IT math.IT stat.TH
Let $\mathbf{W}$ be a correlated complex non-central Wishart matrix defined through $\mathbf{W}=\mathbf{X}^H\mathbf{X}$, where $\mathbf{X}$ is $n\times m \, (n\geq m)$ complex Gaussian with non-zero mean $\boldsymbol{\Upsilon}$ and non-trivial covariance $\boldsymbol{\Sigma}$. We derive exact expressions for the cumulative distribution functions (c.d.f.s) of the extreme eigenvalues (i.e., maximum and minimum) of $\mathbf{W}$ for some particular cases. These results are quite simple, involving rapidly converging infinite series, and apply for the practically important case where $\boldsymbol{\Upsilon}$ has rank one. We also derive analogous results for a certain class of gamma-Wishart random matrices, for which $\boldsymbol{\Upsilon}^H\boldsymbol{\Upsilon}$ follows a matrix-variate gamma distribution. The eigenvalue distributions in this paper have various applications to wireless communication systems, and arise in other fields such as econometrics, statistical physics, and multivariate statistics.
1101.1042
The Accelerating Growth of Online Tagging Systems
cs.IR cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Research on the growth of online tagging systems not only is interesting in its own right, but also yields insights for website management and semantic web analysis. Traditional models that describing the growth of online systems can be divided between linear and nonlinear versions. Linear models, including the BA model (Brabasi and Albert, 1999), assume that the average activity of users is a constant independent of population. Hence the total activity is a linear function of population. On the contrary, nonlinear models suggest that the average activity is affected by the size of the population and the total activity is a nonlinear function of population. In the current study, supporting evidences for the nonlinear growth assumption are obtained from data on Internet users' tagging behavior. A power law relationship between the number of new tags (F) and the population (P), which can be expressed as F ~ P ^ gamma (gamma > 1), is found. I call this pattern accelerating growth and find it relates the to time-invariant heterogeneity in individual activities. I also show how a greater heterogeneity leads to a faster growth.
1101.1043
Global Stability Analysis of Fluid Flows using Sum-of-Squares
math.OC cs.SY math.AP math.DS
This paper introduces a new method for proving global stability of fluid flows through the construction of Lyapunov functionals. For finite dimensional approximations of fluid systems, we show how one can exploit recently developed optimization methods based on sum-of-squares decomposition to construct a polynomial Lyapunov function. We then show how these methods can be extended to infinite dimensional Navier-Stokes systems using robust optimization techniques. Crucially, this extension requires only the solution of infinite-dimensional linear eigenvalue problems and finite-dimensional sum-of-squares optimization problems. We further show that subject to minor technical constraints, a general polynomial Lyapunov function is always guaranteed to provide better results than the classical energy methods in determining a lower-bound on the maximum Reynolds number for which a flow is globally stable, if the flow does remain globally stable for Reynolds numbers at least slightly beyond the energy stability limit. Such polynomial functions can be searched for efficiently using the SOS technique we propose.
1101.1045
Beating the Gilbert-Varshamov Bound for Online Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In the online channel coding model, a sender wishes to communicate a message to a receiver by transmitting a codeword x =(x_1,...,x_n) in {0,1}^n bit by bit via a channel limited to at most pn corruptions. The channel is online in the sense that at the ith step the channel decides whether to flip the ith bit or not and its decision is based only on the bits transmitted so far, i.e., (x_1,...,x_i). This is in contrast to the classical adversarial channel in which the corruption is chosen by a channel that has full knowledge on the sent codeword x. The best known lower bound on the capacity of both the online channel and the classical adversarial channel is the well-known Gilbert-Varshamov bound. In this paper we prove a lower bound on the capacity of the online channel which beats the Gilbert-Varshamov bound for any positive p such that H(2p) < 0.5 (where H is the binary entropy function). To do so, we prove that for any such p, a code chosen at random combined with the nearest neighbor decoder achieves with high probability a rate strictly higher than the Gilbert-Varshamov bound (for the online channel).
1101.1057
Sparsity regret bounds for individual sequences in online linear regression
stat.ML cs.LG math.ST stat.TH
We consider the problem of online linear regression on arbitrary deterministic sequences when the ambient dimension d can be much larger than the number of time rounds T. We introduce the notion of sparsity regret bound, which is a deterministic online counterpart of recent risk bounds derived in the stochastic setting under a sparsity scenario. We prove such regret bounds for an online-learning algorithm called SeqSEW and based on exponential weighting and data-driven truncation. In a second part we apply a parameter-free version of this algorithm to the stochastic setting (regression model with random design). This yields risk bounds of the same flavor as in Dalalyan and Tsybakov (2011) but which solve two questions left open therein. In particular our risk bounds are adaptive (up to a logarithmic factor) to the unknown variance of the noise if the latter is Gaussian. We also address the regression model with fixed design.
1101.1070
From joint convexity of quantum relative entropy to a concavity theorem of Lieb
cs.IT math.IT
This note provides a succinct proof of a 1973 theorem of Lieb that establishes the concavity of a certain trace function. The development relies on a deep result from quantum information theory, the joint convexity of quantum relative entropy, as well as a recent argument due to Carlen and Lieb.
1101.1110
Provenance for Aggregate Queries
cs.DB
We study in this paper provenance information for queries with aggregation. Provenance information was studied in the context of various query languages that do not allow for aggregation, and recent work has suggested to capture provenance by annotating the different database tuples with elements of a commutative semiring and propagating the annotations through query evaluation. We show that aggregate queries pose novel challenges rendering this approach inapplicable. Consequently, we propose a new approach, where we annotate with provenance information not just tuples but also the individual values within tuples, using provenance to describe the values computation. We realize this approach in a concrete construction, first for "simple" queries where the aggregation operator is the last one applied, and then for arbitrary (positive) relational algebra queries with aggregation; the latter queries are shown to be more challenging in this context. Finally, we use aggregation to encode queries with difference, and study the semantics obtained for such queries on provenance annotated databases.
1101.1118
Towards Decentralized Trading: A Topological Investigation of the Dutch Medium and Low Voltage Grids
cs.CE cs.DM cs.SI physics.soc-ph
The traditional Power Grid has been designed in a hierarchical fashion, with Energy pushed from the large scale production facilities towards the end users. But with the increasing availability of micro and medium scale generating facilities, the situation is changing. Many end users can now produce energy and share it over the Power Grid. Naturally, end users need to have incentives to do so and might want to be able to act in an open decentralized energy market. In the present work, we offer a novel analysis of the Medium and Low Voltage Power Grids of the North Netherlands using statistical tools from the Complex Network Analysis field. We use a weighted model based on actual Grid data and propose a set of statistical measures to evaluate the adequacy of the current infrastructure for a decentralized energy market. Further, we use the insight gained by the analysis to propose parameters that tie the statistical topological measures to economic factors that might influence the attractiveness to the end users in participating in such a decentralized energy market, thus identifying what are the important topological parameters to work on to facilitate such open decentralized markets.
1101.1146
Opinion dynamics of random-walking agents on a lattice
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Opinion dynamics of random-walking agents on finite two-dimensional lattices is studied. In the model, the opinion is continuous, and both the lattice and the opinion can be either periodic or non-periodic. At each time step, all agents move randomly on the lattice, and update their opinions based on those of neighbors with whom the differences of opinions are not greater than a given threshold. Due to the effect of repeated averaging, opinions first converge locally, and eventually reach steady states. Like other models with bounded confidence, steady states in general are those with one or more opinion groups, in which all agents have the same opinion. When both the lattice and the opinion are periodic, however, metastable states, in which the whole spectrum of location-dependent opinions can coexist, can emerge. This result shows that, when a set of continuous opinions forms a structure like a circle, other that a typically-used linear opinions, rich dynamic behavior can arise. When there are geographical restrictions in reality, a complete consensus is rarely reached, and metastable states here can be one of the explanations for these situations, especially when opinions are not linear.
1101.1165
Critical behavior of the contact process in a multiscale network
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI q-bio.PE
Inspired by dengue and yellow fever epidemics, we investigated the contact process (CP) in a multiscale network constituted by one-dimensional chains connected through a Barab\'asi-Albert scale-free network. In addition to the CP dynamics inside the chains, the exchange of individuals between connected chains (travels) occurs at a constant rate. A finite epidemic threshold and an epidemic mean lifetime diverging exponentially in the subcritical phase, concomitantly with a power law divergence of the outbreak's duration, were found. A generalized scaling function involving both regular and SF components was proposed for the quasistationary analysis and the associated critical exponents determined, demonstrating that the CP on this hybrid network and nonvanishing travel rates establishes a new universality class.
1101.1232
Levenshtein Distance Technique in Dictionary Lookup Methods: An Improved Approach
cs.IT math.IT
Dictionary lookup methods are popular in dealing with ambiguous letters which were not recognized by Optical Character Readers. However, a robust dictionary lookup method can be complex as apriori probability calculation or a large dictionary size increases the overhead and the cost of searching. In this context, Levenshtein distance is a simple metric which can be an effective string approximation tool. After observing the effectiveness of this method, an improvement has been made to this method by grouping some similar looking alphabets and reducing the weighted difference among members of the same group. The results showed marked improvement over the traditional Levenshtein distance technique.
1101.1252
Scientific data searching, sharing and retrieval
cs.IT math.IT
In the recent years, there has been significant advancement in the areas of scientific data management and retrieval techniques, especially in terms of standards and protocols for archiving data. Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Data Archive Center for biogeochemical dynamics is making efforts in building advanced toolsets for these purposes. Mercury is a web-based metadata harvesting, data discovery and access system, built for researchers to search for, share and obtain biogeochemical data. Originally developed for single National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) project, Mercury now used over fourteen different projects across three US federal agencies. Mercury renders various capabilities including metadata management, indexing, searching, data sharing, and also software reusability.
1101.1266
Extending Bron Kerbosch for Solving the Maximum Weight Clique Problem
cs.DS cs.CV
This contribution extends the Bron Kerbosch algorithm for solving the maximum weight clique problem, where continuous-valued weights are assigned to both, vertices and edges. We applied the proposed algorithm to graph matching problems.
1101.1310
Bounds on the Capacity of Random Insertion and Deletion-Additive Noise Channels
cs.IT math.IT
We develop several analytical lower bounds on the capacity of binary insertion and deletion channels by considering independent uniformly distributed (i.u.d.) inputs and computing lower bounds on the mutual information between the input and output sequences. For the deletion channel, we consider two different models: independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) deletion-substitution channel and i.i.d. deletion channel with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). These two models are considered to incorporate effects of the channel noise along with the synchronization errors. For the insertion channel case we consider the Gallager's model in which the transmitted bits are replaced with two random bits and uniform over the four possibilities independently of any other insertion events. The general approach taken is similar in all cases, however the specific computations differ. Furthermore, the approach yields a useful lower bound on the capacity for a wide range of deletion probabilities for the deletion channels, while it provides a beneficial bound only for small insertion probabilities (less than 0.25) for the insertion model adopted. We emphasize the importance of these results by noting that 1) our results are the first analytical bounds on the capacity of deletion-AWGN channels, 2) the results developed are the best available analytical lower bounds on the deletion-substitution case, 3) for the Gallager insertion channel model, the new lower bound improves the existing results for small insertion probabilities.
1101.1325
Heat-to-work conversion by exploiting full or partial correlations of quantum particles
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
It is shown how information contained in the pairwise correlations (in general, partial) between atoms of a gas can be used to completely convert heat taken from a thermostat into mechanical work in a process of relaxation of the system to its thermal equilibrium state. Both classical correlations and quantum correlations (entanglement) are considered. The amount of heat converted into work is proportional to the entropy defect of the initial state of the system. For fully correlated particles, in the case of entanglement the amount of work obtained per particle is twice as large as in the case of classical correlations. However, in the case of entanglement, the amount of work does not depend on the degree of correlation, in contrast to the case of classical correlations. The results explicitly demonstrate the equivalence relation between information and work for the case of two-particle correlations.
1101.1345
Linear Precoding for Relay Networks with Finite-Alphabet Constraints
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we investigate the optimal precoding scheme for relay networks with finite-alphabet constraints. We show that the previous work utilizing various design criteria to maximize either the diversity order or the transmission rate with the Gaussian-input assumption may lead to significant loss for a practical system with finite constellation set constraint. A linear precoding scheme is proposed to maximize the mutual information for relay networks. We exploit the structure of the optimal precoding matrix and develop a unified two-step iterative algorithm utilizing the theory of convex optimization and optimization on the complex Stiefel manifold. Numerical examples show that this novel iterative algorithm achieves significant gains compared to its conventional counterpart.
1101.1350
Time-Out Lattice Sequential Decoding for the MIMO ARQ Channel
cs.IT math.IT
The optimal diversity-multiplexing-delay tradeoff for the multi-input multi-output (MIMO) automatic repeat request (ARQ) channel can be achieved using incremental redundancy lattice space-time codes coupled with a list decoder for joint error detection and correction. Such a decoder is based on the minimum mean-square error lattice decoding principle which is implemented using sphere decoding algorithms. However, sphere decoders suffer from high computational complexity for low-to-moderate signal-to-noise ratios, especially for large signal dimensions. In this paper, we would like to construct a more efficient decoder that is capable of achieving the optimal tradeoff with much lower complexity. In particular, we will study the throughput-performance-complexity tradeoffs in sequential decoding algorithms and the effect of preprocessing and termination strategies. We show, analytically and via simulation, that using the \textit{lattice sequential decoder} that implements a time-out algorithm for joint error detection and correction, the optimal tradeoff of the MIMO ARQ channel can be achieved with significant reduction in decoding complexity.
1101.1477
Asynchronous Code-Division Random Access Using Convex Optimization
cs.IT math.IT
Many applications in cellular systems and sensor networks involve a random subset of a large number of users asynchronously reporting activity to a base station. This paper examines the problem of multiuser detection (MUD) in random access channels for such applications. Traditional orthogonal signaling ignores the random nature of user activity in this problem and limits the total number of users to be on the order of the number of signal space dimensions. Contention-based schemes, on the other hand, suffer from delays caused by colliding transmissions and the hidden node problem. In contrast, this paper presents a novel pairing of an asynchronous non-orthogonal code-division random access scheme with a convex optimization-based MUD algorithm that overcomes the issues associated with orthogonal signaling and contention-based methods. Two key distinguishing features of the proposed MUD algorithm are that it does not require knowledge of the delay or channel state information of every user and it has polynomial-time computational complexity. The main analytical contribution of this paper is the relationship between the performance of the proposed MUD algorithm in the presence of arbitrary or random delays and two simple metrics of the set of user codewords. The study of these metrics is then focused on two specific sets of codewords, random binary codewords and specially constructed algebraic codewords, for asynchronous random access. The ensuing analysis confirms that the proposed scheme together with either of these two codeword sets significantly outperforms the orthogonal signaling-based random access in terms of the total number of users in the system.
1101.1515
On the Achievable Rates of the Diamond Relay Channel with Conferencing Links
cs.IT math.IT
We consider a half-duplex diamond relay channel, which consists of one source-destination pair and two relay nodes connected with two-way rate-limited out-of-band conferencing links. Three basic schemes and their achievable rates are studied: For the decode-and-forward (DF) scheme, we obtain the achievable rate by letting the source send a common message and two private messages; for the compress-and-forward (CF) scheme, we exploit the conferencing links to help with the compression of the received signals, or to exchange messages intended for the second hop to introduce certain cooperation; for the amplify-and-forward (AF) scheme, we study the optimal combining strategy between the received signals from the source and the conferencing link. Moreover, we show that these schemes could achieve the capacity upper bound under certain conditions. Finally, we evaluate the various rates for the Gaussian case with numerical results.
1101.1550
Structured optical receivers to attain superadditive capacity and the Holevo limit
quant-ph cs.IT math.IT
When classical information is sent over a quantum channel, attaining the ultimate limit to channel capacity requires the receiver to make joint measurements over long codeword blocks. For a pure-state channel, we construct a receiver that can attain the ultimate capacity by applying a single-shot unitary transformation on the received quantum codeword followed by simultaneous (but separable) projective measurements on the single-modulation-symbol state spaces. We study the ultimate limits of photon-information-efficient communications on a lossy bosonic channel. Based on our general results for the pure-state quantum channel, we show some of the first concrete examples of codes and structured joint-detection optical receivers that can achieve fundamentally higher (superadditive) channel capacity than conventional receivers that detect each modulation symbol individually.
1101.1577
Sharp Support Recovery from Noisy Random Measurements by L1 minimization
cs.IT math.IT math.NA
In this paper, we investigate the theoretical guarantees of penalized $\lun$ minimization (also called Basis Pursuit Denoising or Lasso) in terms of sparsity pattern recovery (support and sign consistency) from noisy measurements with non-necessarily random noise, when the sensing operator belongs to the Gaussian ensemble (i.e. random design matrix with i.i.d. Gaussian entries). More precisely, we derive sharp non-asymptotic bounds on the sparsity level and (minimal) signal-to-noise ratio that ensure support identification for most signals and most Gaussian sensing matrices by solving the Lasso problem with an appropriately chosen regularization parameter. Our first purpose is to establish conditions allowing exact sparsity pattern recovery when the signal is strictly sparse. Then, these conditions are extended to cover the compressible or nearly sparse case. In these two results, the role of the minimal signal-to-noise ratio is crucial. Our third main result gets rid of this assumption in the strictly sparse case, but this time, the Lasso allows only partial recovery of the support. We also provide in this case a sharp $\ell_2$-consistency result on the coefficient vector. The results of the present work have several distinctive features compared to previous ones. One of them is that the leading constants involved in all the bounds are sharp and explicit. This is illustrated by some numerical experiments where it is indeed shown that the sharp sparsity level threshold identified by our theoretical results below which sparsistency of the Lasso is guaranteed meets that empirically observed.
1101.1602
Application of Freeman Chain Codes: An Alternative Recognition Technique for Malaysian Car Plates
cs.CV
Various applications of car plate recognition systems have been developed using various kinds of methods and techniques by researchers all over the world. The applications developed were only suitable for specific country due to its standard specification endorsed by the transport department of particular countries. The Road Transport Department of Malaysia also has endorsed a specification for car plates that includes the font and size of characters that must be followed by car owners. However, there are cases where this specification is not followed. Several applications have been developed in Malaysia to overcome this problem. However, there is still problem in achieving 100% recognition accuracy. This paper is mainly focused on conducting an experiment using chain codes technique to perform recognition for different types of fonts used in Malaysian car plates.
1101.1637
A Science Model Driven Retrieval Prototype
cs.IR cs.DL
This paper is about a better understanding on the structure and dynamics of science and the usage of these insights for compensating the typical problems that arises in metadata-driven Digital Libraries. Three science model driven retrieval services are presented: co-word analysis based query expansion, re-ranking via Bradfordizing and author centrality. The services are evaluated with relevance assessments from which two important implications emerge: (1) precision values of the retrieval service are the same or better than the tf-idf retrieval baseline and (2) each service retrieved a disjoint set of documents. The different services each favor quite other - but still relevant - documents than pure term-frequency based rankings. The proposed models and derived retrieval services therefore open up new viewpoints on the scientific knowledge space and provide an alternative framework to structure scholarly information systems.
1101.1638
Universality of competitive networks for weighted networks
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
In this paper, we propose a new model that allows us to investigate this competitive aspect of real networks in quantitative terms. Through theoretical analysis and numerical simulations, we find that the competitive network have the universality for a weighted network. The relation between parameters in the weighted network and the competitiveness in the competitive network is obtained. So we can use the expression of the degree distribution of the competitive model to calculate that and the strength of the weighted network directly. The analytical solution reveals that the degree distribution of the weighted network is correlated with the increment and initial value of edge weights, which is verified by numerical simulations. Moreover, the evolving pattern of a clustering coefficient along with network parameters such as the size of a network, an updating coefficient, an initial weight and the competitiveness are obtained by further simulations. Specially, it is necessary to point out that the initial weight plays equally significant role as updating coefficient in influencing the topological characteristics of the network.
1101.1639
Applying Science Models for Search
cs.IR cs.DL
The paper proposes three different kinds of science models as value-added services that are integrated in the retrieval process to enhance retrieval quality. The paper discusses the approaches Search Term Recommendation, Bradfordizing and Author Centrality on a general level and addresses implementation issues of the models within a real-life retrieval environment.
1101.1643
Multi-Relay Selection Design and Analysis for Multi-Stream Cooperative Communications
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we consider the problem of multi-relay selection for multi-stream cooperative MIMO systems with $M$ relay nodes. Traditionally, relay selection approaches are primarily focused on selecting one relay node to improve the transmission reliability given a single-antenna destination node. As such, in the cooperative phase whereby both the source and the selected relay nodes transmit to the destination node, it is only feasible to exploit cooperative spatial diversity (for example by means of distributed space time coding). For wireless systems with a multi-antenna destination node, in the cooperative phase it is possible to opportunistically transmit multiple data streams to the destination node by utilizing multiple relay nodes. Therefore, we propose a low overhead multi-relay selection protocol to support multi-stream cooperative communications. In addition, we derive the asymptotic performance results at high SNR for the proposed scheme and discuss the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff as well as the throughput-reliability tradeoff. From these results, we show that the proposed multi-stream cooperative communication scheme achieves lower outage probability compared to existing baseline schemes.
1101.1688
Secret Writing on Dirty Paper: A Deterministic View
cs.IT math.IT
Recently there has been a lot of success in using the deterministic approach to provide approximate characterization of Gaussian network capacity. In this paper, we take a deterministic view and revisit the problem of wiretap channel with side information. A precise characterization of the secrecy capacity is obtained for a linear deterministic model, which naturally suggests a coding scheme which we show to achieve the secrecy capacity of the degraded Gaussian model (dubbed as "secret writing on dirty paper") to within half a bit.
1101.1703
Detecting Important Nodes to Community Structure Using the Spectrum of the Graph
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Many complex systems can be represented as networks, and how a network breaks up into subnetworks or communities is of wide interest. However, the development of a method to detect nodes important to communities that is both fast and accurate is a very challenging and open problem. In this manuscript, we introduce a new approach to characterize the node importance to communities. First, a centrality metric is proposed to measure the importance of network nodes to community structure using the spectrum of the adjacency matrix. We define the node importance to communities as the relative change in the eigenvalues of the network adjacency matrix upon their removal. Second, we also propose an index to distinguish two kinds of important nodes in communities, i.e., "community core" and "bridge". Our indices are only relied on the spectrum of the graph matrix. They are applied in many artificial networks as well as many real-world networks. This new methodology gives us a basic approach to solve this challenging problem and provides a realistic result.
1101.1712
Network Capacity Region and Minimum Energy Function for a Delay-Tolerant Mobile Ad Hoc Network
cs.NI cs.IT math.IT
We investigate two quantities of interest in a delay-tolerant mobile ad hoc network: the network capacity region and the minimum energy function. The network capacity region is defined as the set of all input rates that the network can stably support considering all possible scheduling and routing algorithms. Given any input rate vector in this region, the minimum energy function establishes the minimum time average power required to support it. In this work, we consider a cell-partitioned model of a delay-tolerant mobile ad hoc network with general Markovian mobility. This simple model incorporates the essential features of locality of wireless transmissions as well as node mobility and enables us to exactly compute the corresponding network capacity and minimum energy function. Further, we propose simple schemes that offer performance guarantees that are arbitrarily close to these bounds at the cost of an increased delay.
1101.1715
Finding Consensus Bayesian Network Structures
stat.ML cs.AI math.ST stat.TH
Suppose that multiple experts (or learning algorithms) provide us with alternative Bayesian network (BN) structures over a domain, and that we are interested in combining them into a single consensus BN structure. Specifically, we are interested in that the consensus BN structure only represents independences all the given BN structures agree upon and that it has as few parameters associated as possible. In this paper, we prove that there may exist several non-equivalent consensus BN structures and that finding one of them is NP-hard. Thus, we decide to resort to heuristics to find an approximated consensus BN structure. In this paper, we consider the heuristic proposed in \citep{MatzkevichandAbramson1992,MatzkevichandAbramson1993a,MatzkevichandAbramson1993b}. This heuristic builds upon two algorithms, called Methods A and B, for efficiently deriving the minimal directed independence map of a BN structure relative to a given node ordering. Methods A and B are claimed to be correct although no proof is provided (a proof is just sketched). In this paper, we show that Methods A and B are not correct and propose a correction of them.
1101.1740
Optimal stopping for the predictive maintenance of a structure subject to corrosion
math.PR cs.SY math.OC
We present a numerical method to compute the optimal maintenance time for a complex dynamic system applied to an example of maintenance of a metallic structure subject to corrosion. An arbitrarily early intervention may be uselessly costly, but a late one may lead to a partial/complete failure of the system, which has to be avoided. One must therefore find a balance between these too simple maintenance policies. To achieve this aim, we model the system by a stochastic hybrid process. The maintenance problem thus corresponds to an optimal stopping problem. We propose a numerical method to solve the optimal stopping problem and optimize the maintenance time for this kind of processes.
1101.1798
On Krawtchouk polynomials
math.CA cs.IT math.IT
Krawtchouk polynomials play an important role in coding theory and are also useful in graph theory and number theory. Although the basic properties of these polynomials are to some extent known, there is, to my knowledge, no detailed development available. My aim in writing this article is to fill in this gap.
1101.1803
Information sets from defining sets in abelian codes
cs.IT math.IT
We describe a technique to construct a set of check positions (and hence an information set) for every abelian code solely in terms of its defining set. This generalizes that given by Imai in \cite{Imai} in the case of binary TDC codes.
1101.1895
Constructive spherical codes near the Shannon bound
cs.IT math.IT
Shannon gave a lower bound in 1959 on the binary rate of spherical codes of given minimum Euclidean distance $\rho$. Using nonconstructive codes over a finite alphabet, we give a lower bound that is weaker but very close for small values of $\rho$. The construction is based on the Yaglom map combined with some finite sphere packings obtained from nonconstructive codes for the Euclidean metric. Concatenating geometric codes meeting the TVZ bound with a Lee metric BCH code over $GF(p),$ we obtain spherical codes that are polynomial time constructible. Their parameters outperform those obtained by Lachaud and Stern in 1994. At very high rate they are above 98 per cent of the Shannon bound.
1101.1915
A Novel Approach to the Statistical Modeling of Wireline Channels
cs.IT math.IT
We report here that channel power gain and Root-Mean-Square Delay Spread (RMS-DS) in Low/Medium Voltage power line channels are negatively correlated lognormal random variables. Further analysis of other wireline channels allows us to report a strong similarity between some properties observed in power line channels and the ones observed in other wireline channels, e.g. coaxial cables and phone lines. For example, it is here reported that channel power gain and logarithm of the RMS-DS in DSL links are \textit{linearly} correlated random variables. Exploiting these results, we here propose a statistical wireline channel model where tap amplitudes and delays are generated in order to reflect these physical properties. Although wireline channels are considered deterministic as their impulse response can be readily calculated once the link topology is known, a statistical wireline channel model is useful because the variability of link topologies and wiring practices give rise to a stochastic aspect of wireline communications that has not been well characterized in the literature. Finally, we also point out that alternative channel models that normalize impulse responses to a common (often unitary) power gain may be misleading when assessing the performance of equalization schemes since this normalization artificially removes the correlation between channel power gain and RMS-DS and, thus, Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI).
1101.1920
Superposition Coding-Based Bounds and Capacity for the Cognitive Z-Interference Channels
cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers the cognitive interference channel (CIC) with two transmitters and two receivers, in which the cognitive transmitter non-causally knows the message and codeword of the primary transmitter. We first introduce a discrete memoryless more capable CIC, which is an extension to the more capable broadcast channel (BC). Using superposition coding, we propose an inner bound and an outer bound on its capacity region. The outer bound is also valid when the primary user is under strong interference. For the Gaussian CIC, this outer bound applies for $|a| \geq 1 $, where $a$ is the gain of interference link from secondary user to primary receiver. These capacity inner and outer bounds are then applied to the Gaussian cognitive Z-interference channel (GCZIC) where only the primary receiver suffers interference. Upon showing that jointly Gaussian input maximizes these bounds for the GCZIC, we evaluate the bounds for this channel. The new outer bound is strictly tighter than other outer bounds on the capacity of the GCZIC at strong interference ($a^2 \geq 1 $). Especially, the outer bound coincides with the inner bound for $|a| \geq \sqrt{1 + P_1}$ and thus, establishes the capacity of the GCZIC at this range. For such a large $a$, superposition encoding at the cognitive transmitter and successive decoding at the primary receiver are capacity-achieving.
1101.1934
Bit-wise Unequal Error Protection for Variable Length Block Codes with Feedback
cs.IT math.IT
The bit-wise unequal error protection problem, for the case when the number of groups of bits $\ell$ is fixed, is considered for variable length block codes with feedback. An encoding scheme based on fixed length block codes with erasures is used to establish inner bounds to the achievable performance for finite expected decoding time. A new technique for bounding the performance of variable length block codes is used to establish outer bounds to the performance for a given expected decoding time. The inner and the outer bounds match one another asymptotically and characterize the achievable region of rate-exponent vectors, completely. The single message message-wise unequal error protection problem for variable length block codes with feedback is also solved as a necessary step on the way.
1101.2002
Cooperative Tasking for Deterministic Specification Automata
cs.SY cs.MA
In our previous work [1], a divide-and-conquer approach was proposed for cooperative tasking among multi-agent systems. The basic idea is to decompose a requested global specification into subtasks for individual agents such that the fulfillment of these subtasks by each individual agent leads to the satisfaction of the global specification as a team. It was shown that not all tasks can be decomposed. Furthermore, a necessary and sufficient condition was proposed for the decomposability of a task automaton between two cooperative agents. The current paper continues the results in [1] and proposes necessary and sufficient conditions for task decomposability with respect to arbitrary finite number of agents. It is further shown that the fulfillment of local specifications can guarantee the satisfaction of the global specification. This work provides hints for the designers on how to rule out the indecomposable task automata and enforce the decomposability conditions. The result therefore may pave the way towards a new perspective for decentralized cooperative control of multi-agent systems.
1101.2003
Fault-tolerant Cooperative Tasking for Multi-agent Systems
cs.SY cs.MA math.OC
A natural way for cooperative tasking in multi-agent systems is through a top-down design by decomposing a global task into sub-tasks for each individual agent such that the accomplishments of these sub-tasks will guarantee the achievement of the global task. In our previous works [1], [2] we presented necessary and sufficient conditions on the decomposability of a global task automaton between cooperative agents. As a follow-up work, this paper deals with the robustness issues of the proposed top-down design approach with respect to event failures in the multi-agent systems. The main concern under event failure is whether a previously decomposable task can still be achieved collectively by the agents, and if not, we would like to investigate that under what conditions the global task could be robustly accomplished. This is actually the fault-tolerance issue of the top-down design, and the results provide designers with hints on which events are fragile with respect to failures, and whether redundancies are needed. The main objective of this paper is to identify necessary and sufficient conditions on failed events under which a decomposable global task can still be achieved successfully. For such a purpose, a notion called passivity is introduced to characterize the type of event failures. The passivity is found to reflect the redundancy of communication links over shared events, based on which necessary and sufficient conditions for the reliability of cooperative tasking under event failures are derived, followed by illustrative examples and remarks for the derived conditions.
1101.2007
New Results on Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Broadcast Channels with Confidential Messages
cs.IT cs.CR math.IT
This paper presents two new results on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian broadcast channels with confidential messages. First, the problem of the MIMO Gaussian wiretap channel is revisited. A matrix characterization of the capacity-equivocation region is provided, which extends the previous result on the secrecy capacity of the MIMO Gaussian wiretap channel to the general, possibly imperfect secrecy setting. Next, the problem of MIMO Gaussian broadcast channels with two receivers and three independent messages: a common message intended for both receivers, and two confidential messages each intended for one of the receivers but needing to be kept asymptotically perfectly secret from the other, is considered. A precise characterization of the capacity region is provided, generalizing the previous results which considered only two out of three possible messages.
1101.2057
Percolation in networks composed of connectivity and dependency links
cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Networks composed from both connectivity and dependency links were found to be more vulnerable compared to classical networks with only connectivity links. Their percolation transition is usually of a first order compared to the second order transition found in classical networks. We analytically analyze the effect of different distributions of dependencies links on the robustness of networks. For a random Erd$\ddot{o}$s-R$\acute{e}$nyi (ER) network with average degree $k$ that is divided into dependency clusters of size $s$, the fraction of nodes that belong to the giant component, $P_\infty$, is given by $ P_\infty=p^{s-1} [1-\exp{(-kpP_\infty)}]^s $ where $1-p$ is the initial fraction of removed nodes. Our general result coincides with the known Erd$\ddot{o}$s-R$\acute{e}$nyi equation for random networks for $s=1$ and with the result of Parshani et al (PNAS, in press, 2011) for $s=2$. For networks with Poissonian distribution of dependency links we find that $P_\infty$ is given by $P_\infty = f_{k,p}(P_\infty) e^{(<s>-1)(pf_{k,p}(P_\infty)-1)}$ where $f_{k,p}(P_\infty) \equiv 1-\exp{(-kpP_\infty)}$ and $<s>$ is the mean value of the size of dependency clusters. For networks with Gaussian distribution of dependency links we show how the average and width of the distribution affect the robustness of the networks.
1101.2135
Bounded confidence model: addressed information maintain diversity of opinions
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
A community of agents is subject to a stream of messages, which are represented as points on a plane of issues. Messages are sent by media and by agents themselves. Messages from media shape the public opinion. They are unbiased, i.e. positive and negative opinions on a given issue appear with equal frequencies. In our previous work, the only criterion to receive a message by an agent is if the distance between this message and the ones received earlier does not exceed the given value of the tolerance parameter. Here we introduce a possibility to address a message to a given neighbour. We show that this option reduces the unanimity effect, what improves the collective performance.
1101.2182
The Degrees of Freedom of Compute-and-Forward
cs.IT math.IT
We analyze the asymptotic behavior of compute-and-forward relay networks in the regime of high signal-to-noise ratios. We consider a section of such a network consisting of K transmitters and K relays. The aim of the relays is to reliably decode an invertible function of the messages sent by the transmitters. An upper bound on the capacity of this system can be obtained by allowing full cooperation among the transmitters and among the relays, transforming the network into a K times K multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel. The number of degrees of freedom of compute-and-forward is hence at most K. In this paper, we analyze the degrees of freedom achieved by the lattice coding implementation of compute-and-forward proposed recently by Nazer and Gastpar. We show that this lattice implementation achieves at most 2/(1+1/K)\leq 2 degrees of freedom, thus exhibiting a very different asymptotic behavior than the MIMO upper bound. This raises the question if this gap of the lattice implementation to the MIMO upper bound is inherent to compute-and-forward in general. We answer this question in the negative by proposing a novel compute-and-forward implementation achieving K degrees of freedom.
1101.2190
Scaled Bregman divergences in a Tsallis scenario
cond-mat.stat-mech cs.IT math-ph math.IT math.MP
There exist two different versions of the Kullback-Leibler divergence (K-Ld) in Tsallis statistics, namely the usual generalized K-Ld and the generalized Bregman K-Ld. Problems have been encountered in trying to reconcile them. A condition for consistency between these two generalized K-Ld-forms by recourse to the additive duality of Tsallis statistics is derived. It is also shown that the usual generalized K-Ld subjected to this additive duality, known as the dual generalized K-Ld, is a scaled Bregman divergence. This leads to an interesting conclusion: the dual generalized mutual information is a scaled Bregman information. The utility and implications of these results are discussed.
1101.2192
Power Allocation Games in Interference Relay Channels: Existence Analysis of Nash Equilibria
cs.IT math.IT
We consider a network composed of two interfering point-to-point links where the two transmitters can exploit one common relay node to improve their individual transmission rate. Communications are assumed to be multi-band and transmitters are assumed to selfishly allocate their resources to optimize their individual transmission rate. The main objective of this paper is to show that this conflicting situation (modeled by a non-cooperative game) has some stable outcomes, namely Nash equilibria. This result is proved for three different types of relaying protocols: decode-and-forward, estimate-and-forward, and amplify-and-forward. We provide additional results on the problems of uniqueness, efficiency of the equilibrium, and convergence of a best-response based dynamics to the equilibrium. These issues are analyzed in a special case of the amplify-and-forward protocol and illustrated by simulations in general.
1101.2220
Stability Analysis of Transportation Networks with Multiscale Driver Decisions
math.DS cs.GT cs.SY math.OC nlin.AO
Stability of Wardrop equilibria is analyzed for dynamical transportation networks in which the drivers' route choices are influenced by information at multiple temporal and spatial scales. The considered model involves a continuum of indistinguishable drivers commuting between a common origin/destination pair in an acyclic transportation network. The drivers' route choices are affected by their, relatively infrequent, perturbed best responses to global information about the current network congestion levels, as well as their instantaneous local observation of the immediate surroundings as they transit through the network. A novel model is proposed for the drivers' route choice behavior, exhibiting local consistency with their preference toward globally less congested paths as well as myopic decisions in favor of locally less congested paths. The simultaneous evolution of the traffic congestion on the network and of the aggregate path preference is modeled by a system of coupled ordinary differential equations. The main result shows that, if the frequency of updates of path preferences is sufficiently small as compared to the frequency of the traffic flow dynamics, then the state of the transportation network ultimately approaches a neighborhood of the Wardrop equilibrium. The presented results may be read as a further evidence in support of Wardrop's postulate of equilibrium, showing robustness of it with respect to non-persistent perturbations. The proposed analysis combines techniques from singular perturbation theory, evolutionary game theory, and cooperative dynamical systems.
1101.2228
Valued Ties Tell Fewer Lies, II: Why Not To Dichotomize Network Edges With Bounded Outdegrees
stat.AP cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Various methods have been proposed for creating a binary version of a complex network with valued ties. Rather than the default method of choosing a single threshold value about which to dichotomize, we consider a method of choosing the highest k outbound arcs from each person and assigning a binary tie, as this has the advantage of minimizing the isolation of nodes that may otherwise be weakly connected. However, simulations and real data sets establish that this method is worse than the default thresholding method and should not be generally considered to deal with valued networks.
1101.2229
Why aren't the small worlds of protein contact networks smaller
q-bio.MN cs.SI physics.bio-ph physics.soc-ph q-bio.BM
Computer experiments are performed to investigate why protein contact networks (networks induced by spatial contacts between amino acid residues of a protein) do not have shorter average shortest path lengths in spite of their importance to protein folding. We find that shorter average inter-nodal distances is no guarantee of finding a global optimum more easily. Results from the experiments also led to observations which parallel an existing view that neither short-range nor long-range interactions dominate the protein folding process. Nonetheless, runs where there was a slight delay in the use of long-range interactions yielded the best search performance. We incorporate this finding into the optimization function by giving more weight to short-range links. This produced results showing that randomizing long-range links does not yield better search performance than protein contact networks au natural even though randomizing long-range links significantly reduces average path lengths and retains much of the clustering and positive degree-degree correlation inherent in protein contact networks. Hence there can be explanations, other than the excluded volume argument, beneath the topological limits of protein contact networks.
1101.2242
Modelling to study its non-linear effects on Communication System's performance with BER as performance measure
cs.IT math.IT
This paper is a study of non-linear effects of RF Amplifiers on Communication Systems Performance. High speed data communication is made possible by Multilevel Modulation schemes. This paper presents a study of these non linear effects on multilevel Modulation schemes like MPSK and MQAM. We make use of Bit Error Ratio (BER) as performance measure. BER vs SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) curves provide comparison between the non linear effects caused by Gain Compression in particular.
1101.2243
Illustrating Color Evolution and Color Blindness by the Decoding Model of Color Vision
cs.CV
A symmetrical model of color vision, the decoding model as a new version of zone model, was introduced. The model adopts new continuous-valued logic and works in a way very similar to the way a 3-8 decoder in a numerical circuit works. By the decoding model, Young and Helmholtz's tri-pigment theory and Hering's opponent theory are unified more naturally; opponent process, color evolution, and color blindness are illustrated more concisely. According to the decoding model, we can obtain a transform from RGB system to HSV system, which is formally identical to the popular transform for computer graphics provided by Smith (1978). Advantages, problems, and physiological tests of the decoding model are also discussed.
1101.2245
Invertible Bloom Lookup Tables
cs.DS cs.DB
We present a version of the Bloom filter data structure that supports not only the insertion, deletion, and lookup of key-value pairs, but also allows a complete listing of its contents with high probability, as long the number of key-value pairs is below a designed threshold. Our structure allows the number of key-value pairs to greatly exceed this threshold during normal operation. Exceeding the threshold simply temporarily prevents content listing and reduces the probability of a successful lookup. If later entries are deleted to return the structure below the threshold, everything again functions appropriately. We also show that simple variations of our structure are robust to certain standard errors, such as the deletion of a key without a corresponding insertion or the insertion of two distinct values for a key. The properties of our structure make it suitable for several applications, including database and networking applications that we highlight.
1101.2249
Fixed-complexity Sphere Encoder for Multi-user MIMO Systems
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we propose a fixed-complexity sphere encoder (FSE) for multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) systems. The proposed FSE accomplishes a scalable tradeoff between performance and complexity. Also, because it has a parallel tree-search structure, the proposed encoder can be easily pipelined, leading to a tremendous reduction in the precoding latency. The complexity of the proposed encoder is also analyzed, and we propose two techniques that reduce it. Simulation and analytical results demonstrate that in a 4 by 4 MU-MIMO system, the proposed FSE requires only 11.5% of the computational complexity needed by the conventional QRD-M encoder (QRDM-E). Also, the encoding throughput of the proposed encoder is 7.5 times that of the QRDM-E with tolerable degradation in the BER performance, while achieving the optimum diversity order.
1101.2268
Casting Robotic End-effectors To Reach Faraway Moving Objects
cs.RO
In this article we address the problem of catching objects that move at a relatively large distance from the robot, of the order of tens of times the size of the robot itself. To this purpose, we adopt casting manipulation and visual-based feedback control. Casting manipulation is a technique to deploy a robotic end-effector far from the robot's base, by throwing the end-effector and controlling its ballistic flight using forces transmitted through a light tether connected to the end-effector itself. The tether cable can then be used to retrieve the end- effector to exert forces on the robot's environment. In previous work, planar casting manipulation was demon- strated to aptly catch static objects placed at a distant, known position, thus proving it suitable for applications such as sample acquisition and return, rescue, etc. In this paper we propose an extension of the idea to controlling the position of the end- effector to reach moving targets in 3D. The goal is achieved by an innovative design of the casting mechanism, and by closing a real-time control loop on casting manipulation using visual feedback of moving targets. To achieve this result, simplified yet accurate models of the system suitable for real-time computation are developed, along with a suitable visual feedback scheme for the flight phase. Effectiveness of the visual feedback controller is demonstrated through experiments with a 2D casting robot.
1101.2270
Distributed Collision-free Protocol for AGVs in Industrial Environments
cs.RO
In this paper, we propose a decentralized coordina- tion algorithm for safe and efficient management of a group of mobile robots following predefined paths in a dynamic industrial environment. The proposed algorithm is based on a shared resources protocol and a replanning strategy. It is proved to guarantee ordered traffic flows avoiding collisions, deadlocks (stall situations) and livelock (agents move without reaching final destinations). Mutual access to resources has been proved for the proposed approach while condition on the maximum number of AGVs is given to ensure the absence of deadlocks during system evolutions. Finally conditions to verify a local livelocks will also be proposed. In consistency with the model of distributed robotic systems (DRS), no centralized mechanism, synchronized clock, shared memory or ground support is needed. A local inter-robot communication, based on sign-boards, is considered among a small number of spatially adjacent robotic units.
1101.2272
Logical Consensus for Distributed and Robust Intrusion Detection
cs.RO
In this paper we introduce a novel consensus mech- anism where agents of a network are able to share logical values, or Booleans, representing their local opinions on e.g. the presence of an intruder or of a fire within an indoor environment. We first formulate the logical consensus problem, and then we review relevant results in the literature on cellular automata and convergence of finite-state iteration maps. Under suitable joint conditions on the visibility of agents and their communication capability, we provide an algorithm for generating a logical linear consensus system that is globally stable. The solution is optimal in terms of the number of messages to be exchanged and the time needed to reach a consensus. Moreover, to cope with possible sensor failure, we propose a second design approach that produces robust logical nonlinear consensus systems tolerating a given maximum number of faults. Finally, we show applicability of the agreement mechanism to a case study consisting of a distributed Intrusion Detection System (IDS).
1101.2273
Distributed Intrusion Detection for the Security of Societies of Robots
cs.RO
This paper addresses the problem of detecting possible intruders in a group of autonomous robots, which coexist in a shared environment and interact with each other according to a set of "social behaviors", or common rules. Such rules specify what actions each robot is allowed to perform in the pursuit of its individual goals: rules are distributed, i.e. they can evaluated based only on the state of the individual robot, and on information that can be sensed directly or through communication with immediate neighbors. We consider intruders as robots which misbehave, i.e. do not follow the rules, because of either spontaneous failures or malicious reprogramming. Our goal is to detect intruders by observing the congruence of their behavior with the social rules as applied to the current state of the overall system. Moreover, in accordance with the fully distributed nature of the problem, the detection itself must be peformed by individual robots, based only on local information. The paper introduces a formalism that allows to model uniformly a large variety of possible robot societies. The main contribution consists in the proposal of an Intrusion Detection System, i.e. a protocol that, under suitabkle conditions, allows individual robots to detect possible misbehaving robots in their vicinity, and trigger possible further actions to secure the society. It is worth noting that the generality of the protocol formalism makes so that local monitors can be automatically generated once the cooperation rules and the robot dynamics are specified. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is shown through application to examples of automated robotic systems.
1101.2275
Distributed Consensus on Set-valued Information
cs.RO
This paper focuses on the convergence of infor- mation in distributed systems of agents communicating over a network. The information on which the convergence is sought is not represented by real numbers, rather by sets of real numbers, whose possible dynamics are given by the class of so-called Boolean maps, involving only unions, intersections, and complements of sets. Based on a notion of contractivity, a necessary and sufficient condition ensuring the global and local convergence toward an equilibrium point is presented. In particular the analysis of global convergence recovers results already obtained by the authors, but the more general approach used in this paper allows analogue results to be found to characterize the local convergence.
1101.2279
Planning with Partial Preference Models
cs.AI
Current work in planning with preferences assume that the user's preference models are completely specified and aim to search for a single solution plan. In many real-world planning scenarios, however, the user probably cannot provide any information about her desired plans, or in some cases can only express partial preferences. In such situations, the planner has to present not only one but a set of plans to the user, with the hope that some of them are similar to the plan she prefers. We first propose the usage of different measures to capture quality of plan sets that are suitable for such scenarios: domain-independent distance measures defined based on plan elements (actions, states, causal links) if no knowledge of the user's preferences is given, and the Integrated Convex Preference measure in case the user's partial preference is provided. We then investigate various heuristic approaches to find set of plans according to these measures, and present empirical results demonstrating the promise of our approach.
1101.2286
Group Invariant Scattering
math.FA cs.CV
This paper constructs translation invariant operators on L2(R^d), which are Lipschitz continuous to the action of diffeomorphisms. A scattering propagator is a path ordered product of non-linear and non-commuting operators, each of which computes the modulus of a wavelet transform. A local integration defines a windowed scattering transform, which is proved to be Lipschitz continuous to the action of diffeomorphisms. As the window size increases, it converges to a wavelet scattering transform which is translation invariant. Scattering coefficients also provide representations of stationary processes. Expected values depend upon high order moments and can discriminate processes having the same power spectrum. Scattering operators are extended on L2 (G), where G is a compact Lie group, and are invariant under the action of G. Combining a scattering on L2(R^d) and on Ld (SO(d)) defines a translation and rotation invariant scattering on L2(R^d).
1101.2288
On the Degree of Freedom for Multi-Source Multi-Destination Wireless Network with Multi-layer Relays
cs.IT math.IT
Degree of freedom (DoF) region provides an approximation of capacity region in high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, while sum DoF gives the scaling factor. In this correspondence, we analyse the DoF region and sum DoF for unicast layered multi-hop relay wireless networks with arbitrary number of source/destination/relay nodes, arbitrary number of hops and arbitrary number of antennas at each node. The result is valid for quite a few message topologies. We reveal the limitation on capacity of multi-hop network due to the concatenation structure and show the similarity with capacitor network. From the analysis on bound gap and optimality condition, the ultimate capacity of multi-hop network is shown to be strictly inferior to that of single-hop network. Linear scaling law can be established when the number of hops is fixed. At cost of channel state information at transmitters (CSIT) for each component single-hop network, our achievable scheme avoids routing and simplifies scheduling.
1101.2301
A Factorial Experiment on Scalability of Search Based Software Testing
cs.SE cs.AI
Software testing is an expensive process, which is vital in the industry. Construction of the test-data in software testing requires the major cost and to decide which method to use in order to generate the test data is important. This paper discusses the efficiency of search-based algorithms (preferably genetic algorithm) versus random testing, in soft- ware test-data generation. This study differs from all previous studies due to sample programs (SUTs) which are used. Since we want to in- crease the complexity of SUTs gradually, and the program generation is automatic as well, Grammatical Evolution is used to guide the program generation. SUTs are generated according to the grammar we provide, with different levels of complexity. SUTs will first undergo genetic al- gorithm and then random testing. Based on the test results, this paper recommends one method to use for automation of software testing.
1101.2312
Automatic segmentation of HeLa cell images
cs.CV
In this work, the possibilities for segmentation of cells from their background and each other in digital image were tested, combined and improoved. Lot of images with young, adult and mixture cells were able to prove the quality of described algorithms. Proper segmentation is one of the main task of image analysis and steps order differ from work to work, depending on input images. Reply for biologicaly given question was looking for in this work, including filtration, details emphasizing, segmentation and sphericity computing. Order of algorithms and way to searching for them was also described. Some questions and ideas for further work were mentioned in the conclusion part.
1101.2317
A Generalized MMSE Detection with Reduced Complexity for Spatially Multiplexed MIMO Signals
cs.IT math.IT
In multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spatially multiplexing (SM) systems, achievable error rate performance is determined by signal detection strategy. The optimal maximum-likelihood detection (MLD) that exhaustively examines all symbol candidates has exponential complexity and may not be applicable in many practical systems. In this paper, we consider a generalized minimum mean square error (MMSE) detection derived from conditional mean estimation, which in principle behaves equivalently to MLD but also includes a linear MMSE detection as a special case. Motivated by this fact, we propose a low-complexity detection which significantly reduces the number of examined symbol candidates without significant error rate performance degradation from MLD. Our approach is to approximate the probability density function (pdf) of modulated symbols that appears in the exact conditional mean expression such that the decision metric can be cast into a partially closed form. It is found that uniform ring approximation in combination with phase shift keying (PSK) and amplitude phase shift keying (APSK) is promising, as it can achieve a performance even comparable to MLD, while its complexity is linear when the number of transmit antennas is two.
1101.2320
Review and Evaluation of Feature Selection Algorithms in Synthetic Problems
cs.AI cs.LG
The main purpose of Feature Subset Selection is to find a reduced subset of attributes from a data set described by a feature set. The task of a feature selection algorithm (FSA) is to provide with a computational solution motivated by a certain definition of relevance or by a reliable evaluation measure. In this paper several fundamental algorithms are studied to assess their performance in a controlled experimental scenario. A measure to evaluate FSAs is devised that computes the degree of matching between the output given by a FSA and the known optimal solutions. An extensive experimental study on synthetic problems is carried out to assess the behaviour of the algorithms in terms of solution accuracy and size as a function of the relevance, irrelevance, redundancy and size of the data samples. The controlled experimental conditions facilitate the derivation of better-supported and meaningful conclusions.
1101.2378
Extracting Features from Ratings: The Role of Factor Models
cs.AI
Performing effective preference-based data retrieval requires detailed and preferentially meaningful structurized information about the current user as well as the items under consideration. A common problem is that representations of items often only consist of mere technical attributes, which do not resemble human perception. This is particularly true for integral items such as movies or songs. It is often claimed that meaningful item features could be extracted from collaborative rating data, which is becoming available through social networking services. However, there is only anecdotal evidence supporting this claim; but if it is true, the extracted information could very valuable for preference-based data retrieval. In this paper, we propose a methodology to systematically check this common claim. We performed a preliminary investigation on a large collection of movie ratings and present initial evidence.
1101.2389
Capacity Region of Finite State Multiple-Access Channel with Delayed State Information at the Transmitters
cs.IT math.IT
A single-letter characterization is provided for the capacity region of finite-state multiple access channels. The channel state is a Markov process, the transmitters have access to delayed state information, and channel state information is available at the receiver. The delays of the channel state information are assumed to be asymmetric at the transmitters. We apply the result to obtain the capacity region for a finite-state Gaussian MAC, and for a finite-state multiple-access fading channel. We derive power control strategies that maximize the capacity region for these channels.