id
stringlengths
9
16
title
stringlengths
4
278
categories
stringlengths
5
104
abstract
stringlengths
6
4.09k
1102.3029
Analysis of multi-stage open shop processing systems
cs.DS cs.SY math.OC
We study algorithmic problems in multi-stage open shop processing systems that are centered around reachability and deadlock detection questions. We characterize safe and unsafe system states. We show that it is easy to recognize system states that can be reached from the initial state (where the system is empty), but that in general it is hard to decide whether one given system state is reachable from another given system state. We show that the problem of identifying reachable deadlock states is hard in general open shop systems, but is easy in the special case where no job needs processing on more than two machines (by linear programming and matching theory), and in the special case where all machines have capacity one (by graph-theoretic arguments).
1102.3044
The Multiplexing Gain of a Two-cell MIMO Channel with Unequal CSI
cs.IT math.IT
In this work, the joint precoding across two distant transmitters (TXs), sharing the knowledge of the data symbols to be transmitted, to two receivers (RXs), each equipped with one antenna, is discussed. We consider a distributed channel state information (CSI) configuration where each TX has its own local estimate of the channel and no communication is possible between the TXs. Based on the distributed CSI configuration, we introduce a concept of distributed MIMO precoding. We focus on the high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime such that the two TXs aim at designing a precoding matrix to cancel the interference. Building on the study of the multiple antenna broadcast channel, we obtain the following key results: We derive the multiplexing gain (MG) as a function of the scaling in the SNR of the number of bits quantizing at each TX the channel to a given RX. Particularly, we show that the conventional Zero Forcing precoder is not MG maximizing, and we provide a precoding scheme optimal in terms of MG. Beyond the established MG optimality, simulations show that the proposed precoding schemes achieve better performances at intermediate SNR than known linear precoders.
1102.3056
A Phenomenological Study on Threshold Improvement via Spatial Coupling
cs.IT math.IT
Kudekar et al. proved an interesting result in low-density parity-check (LDPC) convolutional codes: The belief-propagation (BP) threshold is boosted to the maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) threshold by spatial coupling. Furthermore, the authors showed that the BP threshold for code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems is improved up to the optimal one via spatial coupling. In this letter, a phenomenological model for elucidating the essence of these phenomenon, called threshold improvement, is proposed. The main result implies that threshold improvement occurs for spatially-coupled general graphical models.
1102.3061
Improvement of BP-Based CDMA Multiuser Detection by Spatial Coupling
cs.IT math.IT
Kudekar et al. proved that the belief-propagation (BP) threshold for low-density parity-check codes can be boosted up to the maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) threshold by spatial coupling. In this paper, spatial coupling is applied to randomly-spread code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems in order to improve the performance of BP-based multiuser detection (MUD). Spatially-coupled CDMA systems can be regarded as multi-code CDMA systems with two transmission phases. The large-system analysis shows that spatial coupling can improve the BP performance, while there is a gap between the BP performance and the individually-optimal (IO) performance.
1102.3063
Adiabatic control of the Schr\"odinger equation via conical intersections of the eigenvalues
math.OC cs.SY
In this paper we present a constructive method to control the bilinear Schr\"odinger equation via two controls. The method is based on adiabatic techniques and works if the spectrum of the Hamiltonian admits eigenvalue intersections, and if the latter are conical (as it happens generically). We provide sharp estimates of the relation between the error and the controllability time.
1102.3067
Investigating the topology of interacting networks - Theory and application to coupled climate subnetworks
physics.data-an cs.SI physics.ao-ph physics.soc-ph
Network theory provides various tools for investigating the structural or functional topology of many complex systems found in nature, technology and society. Nevertheless, it has recently been realised that a considerable number of systems of interest should be treated, more appropriately, as interacting networks or networks of networks. Here we introduce a novel graph-theoretical framework for studying the interaction structure between subnetworks embedded within a complex network of networks. This framework allows us to quantify the structural role of single vertices or whole subnetworks with respect to the interaction of a pair of subnetworks on local, mesoscopic and global topological scales. Climate networks have recently been shown to be a powerful tool for the analysis of climatological data. Applying the general framework for studying interacting networks, we introduce coupled climate subnetworks to represent and investigate the topology of statistical relationships between the fields of distinct climatological variables. Using coupled climate subnetworks to investigate the terrestrial atmosphere's three-dimensional geopotential height field uncovers known as well as interesting novel features of the atmosphere's vertical stratification and general circulation. Specifically, the new measure "cross-betweenness" identifies regions which are particularly important for mediating vertical wind field interactions. The promising results obtained by following the coupled climate subnetwork approach present a first step towards an improved understanding of the Earth system and its complex interacting components from a network perspective.
1102.3080
Covering Point Patterns
cs.IT math.IT
An encoder observes a point pattern---a finite number of points in the interval $[0,T]$---which is to be described to a reconstructor using bits. Based on these bits, the reconstructor wishes to select a subset of $[0,T]$ that contains all the points in the pattern. It is shown that, if the point pattern is produced by a homogeneous Poisson process of intensity $\lambda$, and if the reconstructor is restricted to select a subset of average Lebesgue measure not exceeding $DT$, then, as $T$ tends to infinity, the minimum number of bits per second needed by the encoder is $-\lambda\log D$. It is also shown that, as $T$ tends to infinity, any point pattern on $[0,T]$ containing no more than $\lambda T$ points can be successfully described using $-\lambda \log D$ bits per second in this sense. Finally, a Wyner-Ziv version of this problem is considered where some of the points in the pattern are known to the reconstructor.
1102.3082
Hash-and-Forward Relaying for Two-Way Relay Channel
cs.IT math.IT
This paper considers a communication network comprised of two nodes, which have no mutual direct communication links, communicating two-way with the aid of a common relay node (RN), also known as separated two-way relay (TWR) channel. We first recall a cut-set outer bound for the set of rates in the context of this network topology assuming full-duplex transmission capabilities. Then, we derive a new achievable rate region based on hash-and-forward (HF) relaying where the RN does not attempt to decode but instead hashes its received signal, and show that under certain channel conditions it coincides with Shannon's inner-bound for the two-way channel [1]. Moreover, for binary adder TWR channel with additive noise at the nodes and the RN we provide a detailed capacity achieving coding scheme based on structure codes.
1102.3120
Interference Two-Way Relay Channel with Three End-nodes
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study a communication system consisting of three end-nodes, e.g. a single transceiver base station (BS), one transmitting and one receiving user equipments (UEs), and a common two-way relay node (RN) wherein the full-duplex BS transmits to the receiving UE in downlink direction and receives from the transmitting UE in uplink direction with the help of the intermediate full-duplex RN. We call this system model as interference two-way relay channel (ITWRC) with three end-nodes. Information theoretic bounds corresponding this system model are derived and analyzed so as to better understand the potentials of exploiting RN in future communication systems. Specifically, achievable rate regions corresponding to decode-and-forward (DF) relaying with and without rate splitting, and partial-DF and compress-and-forward (pDF+CF) relaying strategies are derived.
1102.3126
Reduced-Complexity Collaborative Decoding of Interleaved Reed-Solomon and Gabidulin Codes
cs.IT math.IT
An alternative method for collaborative decoding of interleaved Reed-Solomon codes as well as Gabidulin codes for the case of high interleaving degree is proposed. As an example of application, simulation results are presented for a concatenated coding scheme using polar codes as inner codes.
1102.3127
On the Cognitive Interference Channel with Unidirectional Destination Cooperation
cs.IT math.IT
The cognitive interference channel with unidirectional destination cooperation (CIFC-UDC) is a cognitive interference channel (CIFC) where the cognitive (secondary) destination not only decodes the information sent from its sending dual but also helps enhance the communication of the primary user. This channel model is an extension of the original CIFC to achieve a win-win solution under the coexistence condition. From an information-theoretic perspective, the CIFC-UDC comprises a broadcast channel (BC), a relay channel (RC) and a partially cooperative relay broadcast channel (PCRBC), and can be degraded to any one of them. Our main result is the establishment of a new unified achieva-ble rate region for the CIFC-UDC which is the largest known to date and can be explicitly shown to include the previous result proposed by Chu and the largest known rate regions for the BC, the RC and the PCRBC. In addition, an interesting viewpoint on the unidirectional destination cooperation in the CIFC-UDC is discussed: to enable the decoder of the primary user to perform interference mitigation can be considered as a complementary idea to the interference mitigation via Gel'fand-Pinsker precod-ing in the CIFC proposed by Devroye et al. Henceforth, by com-bing these two ideas, the interferences caused at both the desti-nations can be alleviated. Lastly, an outer bound is presented and proved to be tight for a class of the CIFC-UDC, resulting in the characterization of the capacity region for this class.
1102.3129
Automated Complexity Analysis Based on the Dependency Pair Method
cs.LO cs.AI cs.CC cs.PL
This article is concerned with automated complexity analysis of term rewrite systems. Since these systems underlie much of declarative programming, time complexity of functions defined by rewrite systems is of particular interest. Among other results, we present a variant of the dependency pair method for analysing runtime complexities of term rewrite systems automatically. The established results significantly extent previously known techniques: we give examples of rewrite systems subject to our methods that could previously not been analysed automatically. Furthermore, the techniques have been implemented in the Tyrolean Complexity Tool. We provide ample numerical data for assessing the viability of the method.
1102.3132
Connection between Annealed Free Energy and Belief Propagation on Random Factor Graph Ensembles
cs.IT math.IT
Recently, Vontobel showed the relationship between Bethe free energy and annealed free energy for protograph factor graph ensembles. In this paper, annealed free energy of any random regular, irregular and Poisson factor graph ensembles are connected to Bethe free energy. The annealed free energy is expressed as the solution of maximization problem whose stationary condition equations coincide with equations of belief propagation since the contribution to partition function of particular type of variable and factor nodes has similar form of minus Bethe free energy. It gives simple derivation of replica symmetric solution. As consequence, it is shown that on replica symmetric ansatz, replica symmetric solution and annealed free energy are equal for regular ensemble.
1102.3140
Capacity Region of $K$-User Discrete Memoryless Interference Channels with a Mixed Strong-Very Strong Interference
cs.IT math.IT
The capacity region of the 3-user Gaussian Interference Channel (GIC) with mixed strong-very strong interference was established in \cite{ChS}. The mixed strong-very strong interference conditions considered in \cite{ChS} correspond to the case where, at each receiver, one of the interfering signals is strong and the other is very strong. In this paper, we derive the capacity region of $K$-user $(K\geq 3)$ Discrete Memoryless Interference Channels (DMICs) with a mixed strong-very strong interference. This corresponds to the case where, at each receiver one of the interfering signals is strong and the other $(K-2)$ interfering signals are very strong. This includes, as a special case, the 3-user DMIC with mixed strong-very strong interference. The proof is specialized to the 3-user GIC case and hence an alternative simpler derivation for the capacity region of the 3-user GIC with mixed strong-very strong interference is provided.
1102.3162
Network Coding: Is zero error always possible?
cs.IT math.IT
In this work we study zero vs. epsilon-error capacity in network coding instances. For multicast network coding it is well known that all rates that can be delivered with arbitrarily small error probability can also be delivered with zero error probability; that is, the epsilon-error multicast capacity region and zero-error multicast capacity region are identical. For general network coding instances in which all sources originate at the same source node, Chan and Grant recently showed [ISIT 2010] that, again, epsilon-error communication has no rate advantage over zero-error communication. We start by revisiting the setting of co-located sources, where we present an alternative proof to that given by Chan and Grant. While the new proof is based on similar core ideas, our constructive strategy complements the previous argument.We then extend our results to the setting of index coding, which is a special and representative form of network coding that encapsulates the "source coding with side information" problem. Finally, we consider the "edge removal" problem (recently studied by Jalali, Effros, and Ho in [Allerton 2010] and [ITA 2011]) that aims to quantify the loss in capacity associated with removing a single edge from a given network. Using our proof for co-located sources, we tie the "zero vs. epsilon-error" problem in general network coding instances with the "edge removal" problem. Loosely speaking, we show that the two problem are equivalent.
1102.3165
An Approximation Algorithm for Computing Shortest Paths in Weighted 3-d Domains
cs.CG cs.DS cs.GR cs.RO
We present the first polynomial time approximation algorithm for computing shortest paths in weighted three-dimensional domains. Given a polyhedral domain $\D$, consisting of $n$ tetrahedra with positive weights, and a real number $\eps\in(0,1)$, our algorithm constructs paths in $\D$ from a fixed source vertex to all vertices of $\D$, whose costs are at most $1+\eps$ times the costs of (weighted) shortest paths, in $O(\C(\D)\frac{n}{\eps^{2.5}}\log\frac{n}{\eps}\log^3\frac{1}{\eps})$ time, where $\C(\D)$ is a geometric parameter related to the aspect ratios of tetrahedra. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm is based on an in-depth study of the local behavior of geodesic paths and additive Voronoi diagrams in weighted three-dimensional domains, which are of independent interest. The paper extends the results of Aleksandrov, Maheshwari and Sack [JACM 2005] to three dimensions.
1102.3167
A Complete Characterization of Irreducible Cyclic Orbit Codes
cs.IT math.IT
We give a complete list of orbit codes that are generated by an irreducible cyclic group, i.e. an irreducible group having one generator. We derive some of the basic properties of these codes such as the cardinality and the minimum distance.
1102.3176
Selecting the rank of truncated SVD by Maximum Approximation Capacity
cs.IT cs.LG math.IT stat.ML
Truncated Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) calculates the closest rank-$k$ approximation of a given input matrix. Selecting the appropriate rank $k$ defines a critical model order choice in most applications of SVD. To obtain a principled cut-off criterion for the spectrum, we convert the underlying optimization problem into a noisy channel coding problem. The optimal approximation capacity of this channel controls the appropriate strength of regularization to suppress noise. In simulation experiments, this information theoretic method to determine the optimal rank competes with state-of-the art model selection techniques.
1102.3181
Spatially Coupled Quasi-Cyclic Quantum LDPC Codes
cs.IT math.IT quant-ph
We face the following dilemma for designing low-density parity-check codes (LDPC) for quantum error correction. 1) The row weights of parity-check should be large: The minimum distances are bounded above by the minimum row weights of parity-check matrices of constituent classical codes. Small minimum distance tends to result in poor decoding performance at the error-floor region. 2) The row weights of parity-check matrices should not be large: The sum-product decoding performance at the water-fall region is degraded as the row weight increases. Recently, Kudekar et al. showed spatially-coupled (SC) LDPC codes exhibit capacity-achieving performance for classical channels. SC LDPC codes have both large row weight and capacity-achieving error-floor and water-fall performance. In this paper, we design SC LDPC-CSS (Calderbank, Shor and Steane) codes for quantum error correction over the depolarizing channels.
1102.3204
One Packet Suffices - Highly Efficient Packetized Network Coding With Finite Memory
cs.IT cs.DS math.IT
Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) has emerged as a powerful tool for robust high-throughput multicast. Projection analysis - a recently introduced technique - shows that the distributed packetized RLNC protocol achieves (order) optimal and perfectly pipelined information dissemination in many settings. In the original approach to RNLC intermediate nodes code together all available information. This requires intermediate nodes to keep considerable data available for coding. Moreover, it results in a coding complexity that grows linearly with the size of this data. While this has been identified as a problem, approaches that combine queuing theory and network coding have heretofore not provided a succinct representation of the memory needs of network coding at intermediates nodes. This paper shows the surprising result that, in all settings with a continuous stream of data, network coding continues to perform optimally even if only one packet per node is kept in active memory and used for computations. This leads to an extremely simple RLNC protocol variant with drastically reduced requirements on computational and memory resources. By extending the projection analysis, we show that in all settings in which the RLNC protocol was proven to be optimal its finite memory variant performs equally well. In the same way as the original projection analysis, our technique applies in a wide variety of network models, including highly dynamic topologies that can change completely at any time in an adversarial fashion.
1102.3214
LQG Control Approach to Gaussian Broadcast Channels with Feedback
cs.IT math.IT math.OC
A code for communication over the k-receiver additive white Gaussian noise broadcast channel with feedback is presented and analyzed using tools from the theory of linear quadratic Gaussian optimal control. It is shown that the performance of this code depends on the noise correlation at the receivers and it is related to the solution of a discrete algebraic Riccati equation. For the case of independent noises, the sum rate achieved by the proposed code, satisfying average power constraint P, is characterized as 1/2 log (1+P*phi), where the coefficient "phi" in the interval [1,k] quantifies the power gain due to the presence of feedback. When specialized to the case of two receivers, this includes a previous result by Elia and strictly improves upon the code of Ozarow and Leung. When the noises are correlated, the pre-log of the sum-capacity of the broadcast channel with feedback can be strictly greater than one. It is established that for all noise covariance matrices of rank r the pre-log of the sum capacity is at most k-r+1 and, conversely, there exists a noise covariance matrix of rank r for which the proposed code achieves this upper bound. This generalizes a previous result by Gastpar and Wigger for the two-receiver broadcast channel.
1102.3216
The Two-User Gaussian Fading Broadcast Channel
cs.IT math.IT
This paper presents outerbounds for the two-user Gaussian fading broadcast channel. These outerbounds are based on Costa's entropy power inequality (Costa-EPI) and are formulated mathematically as a feasibility problem. For classes of the two-user Gaussian fading broadcast channel where the outerbound is found to have a feasible solution, we find conditions under which a suitable inner and outer bound meet. For all such cases, this paper provides a partial characterization of the capacity region of the Gaussian two-user fading broadcast channel.
1102.3220
A signal recovery algorithm for sparse matrix based compressed sensing
cs.IT cond-mat.dis-nn math.IT
We have developed an approximate signal recovery algorithm with low computational cost for compressed sensing on the basis of randomly constructed sparse measurement matrices. The law of large numbers and the central limit theorem suggest that the developed algorithm saturates the Donoho-Tanner weak threshold for the perfect recovery when the matrix becomes as dense as the signal size $N$ and the number of measurements $M$ tends to infinity keep $\alpha=M/N \sim O(1)$, which is supported by extensive numerical experiments. Even when the numbers of non-zero entries per column/row in the measurement matrices are limited to $O(1)$, numerical experiments indicate that the algorithm can still typically recover the original signal perfectly with an $O(N)$ computational cost per update as well if the density $\rho$ of non-zero entries of the signal is lower than a certain critical value $\rho_{\rm th}(\alpha)$ as $N,M \to \infty$.
1102.3225
Capacity to within 3 bits for a class of Gaussian Interference Channels with a Cognitive Relay
cs.IT math.IT
The InterFerence Channel with a Cognitive Relay (IFC-CR) consists of a classical two-user interference channel in which the two independent messages are also non-causally known at a cognitive relay node. In this work a special class of IFC-CRs in which the sources do not create interference at the non-intended destinations is analyzed. This special model results in a channel with two non-interfering point-to-point channels whose transmission is aided by an in-band cognitive relay, which is thus referred to as the Parallel Channel with a Cognitive Relay (PC-CR). We determine the capacity of the PC-CR channel to within 3 bits/s/Hz for all channel parameters. In particular, we present several new outer bounds which we achieve to within a constant gap by proper selection of Gaussian input distributions in a simple rate-splitting and superposition coding-based inner bound. The inner and outer bounds are numerically evaluated to show that the actual gap can be far less than 3 bits/s/Hz.
1102.3226
A New Capacity Result for the Z-Gaussian Cognitive Interference Channel
cs.IT math.IT
This work proposes a novel outer bound for the Gaussian cognitive interference channel in strong interference at the primary receiver based on the capacity of a multi-antenna broadcast channel with degraded message set. It then shows that for the Z-channel, i.e., when the secondary receiver experiences no interference and the primary receiver experiences strong interference, the proposed outer bound not only is the tightest among known bounds but is actually achievable for sufficiently strong interference. The latter is a novel capacity result that from numerical evaluations appears to be generalizable to a larger (i.e., non-Z) class of Gaussian channels.
1102.3227
The Capacity of the Interference Channel with a Cognitive Relay in Very Strong Interference
cs.IT math.IT
The interference channel with a cognitive relay consists of a classical interference channel with two sourcedestination pairs and with an additional cognitive relay that has a priori knowledge of the sources' messages and aids in the sources' transmission. We derive a new outer bound for this channel using an argument originally devised for the "more capable" broadcast channel, and show the achievability of the proposed outer bound in the "very strong interference" regime, a class of channels where there is no loss in optimality if both destinations decode both messages. This result is analogous to the "very strong interference" capacity result for the classical interference channel and for the cognitive interference channel, and is the first capacity known capacity result for the general interference channel with a cognitive relay.
1102.3235
K-user Interference Channels: General Outer Bound and Sum-capacity for Certain Gaussian Channels
cs.IT math.IT
This paper derives an outer bound on the capacity region of a general memoryless interference channel with an arbitrary number of users. The derivation follows from a generalization of the techniques developed by Kramer and by Etkin et al for the Gaussian two-user channel. The derived bound is the first known outer bound valid for any memoryless channel. In Gaussian noise, classes of channels for which the proposed bound gives the sum-rate capacity are identified, including degraded channels and a class of Z-channels.
1102.3241
Some limits to nonparametric estimation for ergodic processes
cs.IT math.IT
A new negative result for nonparametric distribution estimation of binary ergodic processes is shown. The problem of estimation of distribution with any degree of accuracy is studied. Then it is shown that for any countable class of estimators there is a zero-entropy binary ergodic process that is inconsistent with the class of estimators. Our result is different from other negative results for universal forecasting scheme of ergodic processes. We also introduce a related result by B. Weiss.
1102.3242
Weak randomness and Kamae's theorem on normal numbers
cs.IT math.IT
A function from sequences to their subsequences is called selection function. A selection function is called admissible (with respect to normal numbers) if for all normal numbers, their subsequences obtained by the selection function are normal numbers. In Kamae (1973) selection functions that are not depend on sequences (depend only on coordinates) are studied, and their necessary and sufficient condition for admissibility is given. In this paper we introduce a notion of weak randomness and study an algorithmic analogy to the Kamae's theorem.
1102.3243
On the Capacity of Abelian Group Codes Over Discrete Memoryless Channels
cs.IT math.IT
For most discrete memoryless channels, there does not exist a linear code for the channel which uses all of the channel's input symbols. Therefore, linearity of the code for such channels is a very restrictive condition and there should be a loosening of the algebraic structure of the code to a degree that the code can admit any channel input alphabet. For any channel input alphabet size, there always exists an Abelian group structure defined on the alphabet. We investigate the capacity of Abelian group codes over discrete memoryless channels and provide lower and upper bounds on the capacity.
1102.3260
Adaptive Cluster Expansion for Inferring Boltzmann Machines with Noisy Data
physics.data-an cond-mat.stat-mech cs.LG q-bio.NC q-bio.QM
We introduce a procedure to infer the interactions among a set of binary variables, based on their sampled frequencies and pairwise correlations. The algorithm builds the clusters of variables contributing most to the entropy of the inferred Ising model, and rejects the small contributions due to the sampling noise. Our procedure successfully recovers benchmark Ising models even at criticality and in the low temperature phase, and is applied to neurobiological data.
1102.3268
Exact observability, square functions and spectral theory
math.FA cs.SY math.OC
In the first part of this article we introduce the notion of a backward-forward conditioning (BFC) system that generalises the notion of zero-class admissibiliy introduced in [Xu,Liu,Yung]. We can show that unless the spectum contains a halfplane, the BFC property occurs only in siutations where the underlying semigroup extends to a group. In a second part we present a sufficient condition for exact observability in Banach spaces that is designed for infinite-dimensional output spaces and general strongly continuous semigroups. To obtain this we make use of certain weighted square function estimates. Specialising to the Hilbert space situation we obtain a result for contraction semigroups without an analyticity condition on the semigroup.
1102.3288
Compressive MUSIC with optimized partial support for joint sparse recovery
cs.IT math.IT
Multiple measurement vector (MMV) problem addresses the identification of unknown input vectors that share common sparse support. The MMV problems had been traditionally addressed either by sensor array signal processing or compressive sensing. However, recent breakthrough in this area such as compressive MUSIC (CS-MUSIC) or subspace-augumented MUSIC (SA-MUSIC) optimally combines the compressive sensing (CS) and array signal processing such that $k-r$ supports are first found by CS and the remaining $r$ supports are determined by generalized MUSIC criterion, where $k$ and $r$ denote the sparsity and the independent snapshots, respectively. Even though such hybrid approach significantly outperforms the conventional algorithms, its performance heavily depends on the correct identification of $k-r$ partial support by compressive sensing step, which often deteriorate the overall performance. The main contribution of this paper is, therefore, to show that as long as $k-r+1$ correct supports are included in any $k$-sparse CS solution, the optimal $k-r$ partial support can be found using a subspace fitting criterion, significantly improving the overall performance of CS-MUSIC. Furthermore, unlike the single measurement CS counterpart that requires infinite SNR for a perfect support recovery, we can derive an information theoretic sufficient condition for the perfect recovery using CS-MUSIC under a {\em finite} SNR scenario.
1102.3289
Belief propagation for joint sparse recovery
cs.IT math.IT
Compressed sensing (CS) demonstrates that sparse signals can be recovered from underdetermined linear measurements. We focus on the joint sparse recovery problem where multiple signals share the same common sparse support sets, and they are measured through the same sensing matrix. Leveraging a recent information theoretic characterization of single signal CS, we formulate the optimal minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation problem, and derive a belief propagation algorithm, its relaxed version, for the joint sparse recovery problem and an approximate message passing algorithm. In addition, using density evolution, we provide a sufficient condition for exact recovery.
1102.3294
Causal Rate Distortion Function on Abstract Alphabets and Optimal Reconstruction Kernel
cs.IT math.IT
A Causal rate distortion function with a general fidelity criterion is formulated on abstract alphabets and the optimal reconstruction kernel is derived, which consists of a product of causal kernels. In the process, general abstract spaces are introduced to show existence of the minimizing kernel using weak*-convergence. Certain properties of the causal rate distortion function are presented.
1102.3295
General Linear Quadratic Optimal Stochastic Control Problem Driven by a Brownian Motion and a Poisson Random Martingale Measure with Random Coefficients
math.OC cs.SY
The main purpose of this paper is to discuss detailed the stochastic LQ control problem with random coefficients where the linear system is a multidimensional stochastic differential equation driven by a multidimensional Brownian motion and a Poisson random martingale measure. In the paper, we will establish the connections of the multidimensional Backward stochastic Riccati equation with jumps (BSRDEJ in short form) to the stochastic LQ problem and to the associated Hamilton systems. By the connections, we show the optimal control have the state feedback representation. Moreover, we will show the existence and uniqueness result of the multidimensional BSRDEJ for the case where the generator is bounded linear dependence with respect to the unknowns martingale term.
1102.3298
A family of fast-decodable MIDO codes from crossed-product algebras over Q
cs.IT math.IT math.RA
Multiple Input Double Output (MIDO) asymmetric space-time codes for 4 transmit antennas and 2 receive antennas can be employed in the downlink from base stations to portable devices. Previous MIDO code constructions with low Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoding complexity, full diversity and the non-vanishing determinant (NVD) property are mostly based on cyclic division algebras. In this paper, a new family of MIDO codes with the NVD property based on crossed-product algebras over Q is introduced. Fast decodability follows naturally from the structure of the codewords which consist of four generalized Alamouti blocks. The associated ML complexity order is the lowest known for full-rate MIDO codes (O(M^{10}) instead of O(M^{16}) with respect to the real constellation size M). Numerical simulations show that these codes have a performance from comparable up to 1dB gain compared to the best known MIDO code with the same complexity.
1102.3306
Efficient Error-Correcting Geocoding
cs.IR cs.DS
We study the problem of resolving a perhaps misspelled address of a location into geographic coordinates of latitude and longitude. Our data structure solves this problem within a few milliseconds even for misspelled and fragmentary queries. Compared to major geographic search engines such as Google or Bing we achieve results of significantly better quality.
1102.3328
An Efficient and Integrated Algorithm for Video Enhancement in Challenging Lighting Conditions
cs.GR cs.CV
We describe a novel integrated algorithm for real-time enhancement of video acquired under challenging lighting conditions. Such conditions include low lighting, haze, and high dynamic range situations. The algorithm automatically detects the dominate source of impairment, then depending on whether it is low lighting, haze or others, a corresponding pre-processing is applied to the input video, followed by the core enhancement algorithm. Temporal and spatial redundancies in the video input are utilized to facilitate real-time processing and to improve temporal and spatial consistency of the output. The proposed algorithm can be used as an independent module, or be integrated in either a video encoder or a video decoder for further optimizations.
1102.3340
Multi-skill Collaborative Teams based on Densest Subgraphs
cs.SI cs.DS physics.soc-ph
We consider the problem of identifying a team of skilled individuals for collaboration, in the presence of a social network. Each node in the social network may be an expert in one or more skills. Edge weights specify affinity or collaborative compatibility between respective nodes. Given a project that requires a set of specified number of skilled individuals in each area of expertise, the goal is to identify a team that maximizes the collaborative compatibility. For example, the requirement may be to form a team that has at least three databases experts and at least two theory experts. We explore team formation where the collaborative compatibility objective is measured as the density of the induced subgraph on selected nodes. The problem of maximizing density is NP-hard even when the team requires individuals of only one skill. We present a 3-approximation algorithm that improves upon a naive extension of the previously known algorithm for densest at least $k$ subgraph problem. We further show how the same approximation can be extended to a special case of multiple skills. Our problem generalizes the formulation studied by Lappas et al. [KDD '09] who measure team compatibility in terms of diameter or spanning tree costs. Experiments are performed on a crawl of the DBLP graph where individuals can be skilled in at most four areas - theory, databases, data mining, and artificial intelligence. In addition to our main algorithm, we also present heuristic extensions to trade off between the size of the solution and its induced density. These density-based algorithms outperform the diameter-based objective on several metrics for assessing the collaborative compatibility of teams. The solutions suggested are also intuitively meaningful and scale well with the increase in the number of skilled individuals required.
1102.3341
Reasoning about Social Choice Functions
cs.MA
We introduce a logic specifically designed to support reasoning about social choice functions. The logic includes operators to capture strategic ability, and operators to capture agent preferences. We establish a correspondence between formulae in the logic and properties of social choice functions, and show that the logic is expressively complete with respect to social choice functions, i.e., that every social choice function can be characterised as a formula of the logic. We prove that the logic is decidable, and give a complete axiomatization. To demonstrate the value of the logic, we show in particular how it can be applied to the problem of determining whether a social choice function is strategy-proof.
1102.3350
On conjugacy classes of subgroups of the general linear group and cyclic orbit codes
cs.IT math.IT
Orbit codes are a family of codes employable for communications on a random linear network coding channel. The paper focuses on the classification of these codes. We start by classifying the conjugacy classes of cyclic subgroups of the general linear group. As a result, we are able to focus the study of cyclic orbit codes to a restricted family of them.
1102.3390
Trellis-Based Check Node Processing for Low-Complexity Nonbinary LP Decoding
cs.IT math.IT
Linear Programming (LP) decoding is emerging as an attractive alternative to decode Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes. However, the earliest LP decoders proposed for binary and nonbinary LDPC codes are not suitable for use at moderate and large code lengths. To overcome this problem, Vontobel et al. developed an iterative Low-Complexity LP (LCLP) decoding algorithm for binary LDPC codes. The variable and check node calculations of binary LCLP decoding algorithm are related to those of binary Belief Propagation (BP). The present authors generalized this work to derive an iterative LCLP decoding algorithm for nonbinary linear codes. Contrary to binary LCLP, the variable and check node calculations of this algorithm are in general different from that of nonbinary BP. The overall complexity of nonbinary LCLP decoding is linear in block length; however the complexity of its check node calculations is exponential in the check node degree. In this paper, we propose a modified BCJR algorithm for efficient check node processing in the nonbinary LCLP decoding algorithm. The proposed algorithm has complexity linear in the check node degree. We also introduce an alternative state metric to improve the run time of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results are presented for $(504, 252)$ and $(1008, 504)$ nonbinary LDPC codes over $\mathbb{Z}_4$.
1102.3392
Space-Time Coding over Fading Channels with Stable Noise
cs.IT math.IT
This paper addresses the performance of space-time coding over fading channels with impulsive noise which is known to accurately capture network interference. We use the symmetric alpha stable noise distribution and adopt two models which assume dependent and independent noise components across receive antennas. We derive pairwise error probability (PEP) of orthogonal space-time block codes (STBC) with a benchmark genie-aided receiver (GAR), or the minimum distance receiver (MDR) which is optimal in the Gaussian case. For general space-time codes we propose a maximum-likelihood (ML) receiver, and its approximation at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The resulting asymptotically optimal receiver (AOR) does not depend on noise parameters and is computationally simple. Monte-Carlo simulations are used to supplement our analytical results and compare the performance of the receivers.
1102.3396
Detecting Separation in Robotic and Sensor Networks
cs.RO cs.SY
In this paper we consider the problem of monitoring detecting separation of agents from a base station in robotic and sensor networks. Such separation can be caused by mobility and/or failure of the agents. While separation/cut detection may be performed by passing messages between a node and the base in static networks, such a solution is impractical for networks with high mobility, since routes are constantly changing. We propose a distributed algorithm to detect separation from the base station. The algorithm consists of an averaging scheme in which every node updates a scalar state by communicating with its current neighbors. We prove that if a node is permanently disconnected from the base station, its state converges to $0$. If a node is connected to the base station in an average sense, even if not connected in any instant, then we show that the expected value of its state converges to a positive number. Therefore, a node can detect if it has been separated from the base station by monitoring its state. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through simulations, a real system implementation and experiments involving both static as well as mobile networks.
1102.3410
Capacity Bounds for Multiuser Channels with Non-Causal Channel State Information at the Transmitters
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, capacity inner and outer bounds are established for the multiuser channels with Channel State Information (CSI) known non-causally at the transmitters: The Multiple Access Channel (MAC), the Broadcast Channel (BC) with common information, and the Relay Channel (RC). For each channel, the actual capacity region is also derived in some special cases. Specifically, it is shown that for some deterministic models with non-causal CSI at the transmitters, similar to Costa's Gaussian channel, the availability of CSI at the deterministic receivers does not affect the capacity region.
1102.3413
The Capacity Region of p-Transmitter/q-Receiver Multiple-Access Channels with Common Information
cs.IT math.IT
This paper investigates the capacity problem for some multiple-access scenarios with cooperative transmitters. First, a general Multiple-Access Channel (MAC) with common information, i.e., a scenario where p transmitters send private messages and also a common message to q receivers and each receiver decodes all of the messages, is considered. The capacity region of the discrete memoryless channel is characterized. Then, the general Gaussian fading MAC with common information wherein partial Channel State Information (CSI) is available at the transmitters (CSIT) and perfect CSI is available at the receivers (CSIR) is investigated. A coding theorem is proved for this model that yields an exact characterization of the throughput capacity region. Finally, a two-transmitter/one-receiver Gaussian fading MAC with conferencing encoders with partial CSIT and perfect CSIR is studied and its capacity region is determined. For the Gaussian fading models with CSIR only (transmitters have no access to CSIT), some numerical examples and simulation results are provided for Rayleigh fading.
1102.3493
Scalable constructions of fractional repetition codes in distributed storage systems
cs.IT cs.DC math.IT
In distributed storage systems built using commodity hardware, it is necessary to have data redundancy in order to ensure system reliability. In such systems, it is also often desirable to be able to quickly repair storage nodes that fail. We consider a scheme--introduced by El Rouayheb and Ramchandran--which uses combinatorial block design in order to design storage systems that enable efficient (and exact) node repair. In this work, we investigate systems where node sizes may be much larger than replication degrees, and explicitly provide algorithms for constructing these storage designs. Our designs, which are related to projective geometries, are based on the construction of bipartite cage graphs (with girth 6) and the concept of mutually-orthogonal Latin squares. Via these constructions, we can guarantee that the resulting designs require the fewest number of storage nodes for the given parameters, and can further show that these systems can be easily expanded without need for frequent reconfiguration.
1102.3495
Diversity and Multiplexing Tradeoff in the Uplink of Cellular Systems with Linear MMSE Receiver
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we extend the diversity and multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) analysis from point-to-point channels to cellular systems to evaluate the impact of inter-cell interference on the system reliability and efficiency. Fundamental tradeoff among diversity order, multiplexing gain and inter-cell interference intensity is characterized to reveal the capability of multiple antennas in cellular systems. And the detrimental effects of the inter-cell interference on the system performance of diversity and multiplexing is presented and analyzed.
1102.3500
Improved Rate-Equivocation Regions for Secure Cooperative Communication
cs.IT math.IT
A simple four node network in which cooperation improves the information-theoretic secrecy is studied. The channel consists of two senders, a receiver, and an eavesdropper. One or both senders transmit confidential messages to the receiver, while the eavesdropper tries to decode the transmitted message. The main result is the derivation of a newly achievable rate-equivocation region that is shown to be larger than a rate-equivocation region derived by Lai and El Gamal for the relay-eavesdropper channel. When the rate of the helping interferer is zero, the new rate-equivocation region reduces to the capacity-equivocation region over the wire-tap channel, hence, the new achievability scheme can be seen as a generalization of a coding scheme proposed by Csiszar and Korner. This result can naturally be combined with a rate-equivocation region given by Tang et al. (for the interference assisted secret communication), yielding an even larger achievable rate-equivocation region.
1102.3508
Online Learning of Rested and Restless Bandits
math.OC cs.LG
In this paper we study the online learning problem involving rested and restless multiarmed bandits with multiple plays. The system consists of a single player/user and a set of K finite-state discrete-time Markov chains (arms) with unknown state spaces and statistics. At each time step the player can play M arms. The objective of the user is to decide for each step which M of the K arms to play over a sequence of trials so as to maximize its long term reward. The restless multiarmed bandit is particularly relevant to the application of opportunistic spectrum access (OSA), where a (secondary) user has access to a set of K channels, each of time-varying condition as a result of random fading and/or certain primary users' activities.
1102.3513
Layered Index-less Indexed Flash Codes for Improving Average Performance
cs.IT math.IT
In the present paper, a modification of the Index-less Indexed Flash Codes (ILIFC) for flash memory storage system is presented. Although the ILIFC proposed by Mahdavifar et al. has excellent worst case performance, the ILIFC can be further improved in terms of the average case performance. The proposed scheme, referred to as the {\em layered ILIFC}, is based on the ILIFC. However, the primary focus of the present study is the average case performance. The main feature of the proposed scheme is the use of the layer-based index coding to represent indices of information bits. The layer index coding promotes the uniform use of cell levels, which leads to better average case performance. Based on experiments, the proposed scheme achieves a larger average number of rewritings than the original ILIFC without loss of worst case performance.
1102.3520
On Multiple Hypothesis Testing with Rejection Option
cs.IT math.IT
We study the problem of multiple hypothesis testing (HT) in view of a rejection option. That model of HT has many different applications. Errors in testing of M hypotheses regarding the source distribution with an option of rejecting all those hypotheses are considered. The source is discrete and arbitrarily varying (AVS). The tradeoffs among error probability exponents/reliabilities associated with false acceptance of rejection decision and false rejection of true distribution are investigated and the optimal decision strategies are outlined. The main result is specialized for discrete memoryless sources (DMS) and studied further. An interesting insight that the analysis implies is the phenomenon (comprehensible in terms of supervised/unsupervised learning) that in optimal discrimination within M hypothetical distributions one permits always lower error than in deciding to decline the set of hypotheses. Geometric interpretations of the optimal decision schemes are given for the current and known bounds in multi-HT for AVS's.
1102.3526
Linear Error Correcting Codes with Anytime Reliability
cs.IT cs.SY math.IT math.OC
We consider rate R = k/n causal linear codes that map a sequence of k-dimensional binary vectors {b_t} to a sequence of n-dimensional binary vectors {c_t}, such that each c_t is a function of {b_1,b_2,...,b_t}. Such a code is called anytime reliable, for a particular binary-input memoryless channel, if at each time, probability of making an error about a source bit that was sent d time instants ago decays exponentially in d. Anytime reliable codes are useful in interactive communication problems and, in particular, can be used to stabilize unstable plants across noisy channels. Schulman proved the existence of such codes which, due to their structure, he called tree codes; however, to date, no explicit constructions and tractable decoding algorithms have been devised. In this paper, we show the existence of anytime reliable "linear" codes with "high probability", i.e., suitably chosen random linear causal codes are anytime reliable with high probability. The key is to consider time-invariant codes (i.e., ones with Toeplitz generator and parity check matrices) which obviates the need to union bound over all times. For the binary erasure channel we give a simple ML decoding algorithm whose average complexity is constant per time iteration and for which the probability that complexity at a given time t exceeds KC^3 decays exponentially in C. We show the efficacy of the method by simulating the stabilization of an unstable plant across a BEC, and remark on the tradeoffs between the utilization of the communication resources and the control performance.
1102.3527
Generation of Innovative and Sparse Encoding Vectors for Broadcast Systems with Feedback
cs.IT cs.CC math.IT
In the application of linear network coding to wireless broadcasting with feedback, we prove that the problem of determining the existence of an innovative encoding vector is NP-complete when the finite field size is two. When the finite field size is larger than or equal to the number of users, it is shown that we can always find an encoding vector which is both innovative and sparse. The sparsity can be utilized in speeding up the decoding process. An efficient algorithm to generate innovative and sparse encoding vectors is developed. Simulations show that the delay performance of our scheme with binary finite field outperforms a number of existing schemes in terms of average and worst-case delay.
1102.3569
Optimality of Network Coding in Packet Networks
cs.IT cs.DS math.IT
We resolve the question of optimality for a well-studied packetized implementation of random linear network coding, called PNC. In PNC, in contrast to the classical memoryless setting, nodes store received information in memory to later produce coded packets that reflect this information. PNC is known to achieve order optimal stopping times for the many-to-all multicast problem in many settings. We give a reduction that captures exactly how PNC and other network coding protocols use the memory of the nodes. More precisely, we show that any such protocol implementation induces a transformation which maps an execution of the protocol to an instance of the classical memoryless setting. This allows us to prove that, for any (non-adaptive dynamic) network, PNC converges with high probability in optimal time. In other words, it stops at exactly the first time in which in hindsight it was possible to route information from the sources to each receiver individually. Our technique also applies to variants of PNC, in which each node uses only a finite buffer. We show that, even in this setting, PNC stops exactly within the time in which in hindsight it was possible to route packets given the memory constraint, i.e., that the memory used at each node never exceeds its buffer size. This shows that PNC, even without any feedback or explicit memory management, allows to keep minimal buffer sizes while maintaining its capacity achieving performance.
1102.3578
Onset of Synchronization in Weighted Complex Networks: the Effect of Weight-Degree Correlation
nlin.CD cs.SI physics.soc-ph
By numerical simulations, we investigate the onset of synchronization of networked phase oscillators under two different weighting schemes. In scheme-I, the link weights are correlated to the product of the degrees of the connected nodes, so this kind of networks is named as the weight-degree correlated (WDC) network. In scheme-II, the link weights are randomly assigned to each link regardless of the node degrees, so this kind of networks is named as the weight-degree uncorrelated (WDU) network. Interestingly, it is found that by increasing a parameter that governs the weight distribution, the onset of synchronization in WDC network is monotonically enhanced, while in WDU network there is a reverse in the synchronization performance. We investigate this phenomenon from the viewpoint of gradient network, and explain the contrary roles of coupling gradient on network synchronization: gradient promotes synchronization in WDC network, while deteriorates synchronization in WDU network. The findings highlight the fact that, besides the link weight, the correlation between the weight and node degree is also important to the network dynamics.
1102.3579
Cooperative Interference Control for Spectrum Sharing in OFDMA Cellular Systems
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies cooperative schemes for the inter-cell interference control in orthogonal-frequency-divisionmultiple- access (OFDMA) cellular systems. The downlink transmission in a simplified two-cell system is examined, where both cells simultaneously access the same frequency band using OFDMA. The joint power and subcarrier allocation over the two cells is investigated for maximizing their sum throughput with both centralized and decentralized implementations. Particularly, the decentralized allocation is achieved via a new cooperative interference control approach, whereby the two cells independently implement resource allocation to maximize individual throughput in an iterative manner, subject to a set of mutual interference power constraints. Simulation results show that the proposed decentralized resource allocation schemes achieve the system throughput close to that by the centralized scheme, and provide substantial throughput gains over existing schemes.
1102.3584
Urban road networks -- Spatial networks with universal geometric features? A case study on Germany's largest cities
physics.data-an cs.SI physics.soc-ph
Urban road networks have distinct geometric properties that are partially determined by their (quasi-) two-dimensional structure. In this work, we study these properties for 20 of the largest German cities. We find that the small-scale geometry of all examined road networks is extremely similar. The object-size distributions of road segments and the resulting cellular structures are characterised by heavy tails. As a specific feature, a large degree of rectangularity is observed in all networks, with link angle distributions approximately described by stretched exponential functions. We present a rigorous statistical analysis of the main geometric characteristics and discuss their mutual interrelationships. Our results demonstrate the fundamental importance of cost-efficiency constraints for in time evolution of urban road networks.
1102.3603
A Graph Theoretical Approach for Network Coding in Wireless Body Area Networks
cs.IT math.IT
Modern medical wireless systems, such as wireless body area networks (WBANs), are applications of wireless networks that can be used as a tool of data transmission between patients and doctors. Accuracy of data transmission is an important requirement for such systems. In this paper, we will propose a WBAN which is robust against erasures and describe its properties using graph theoretic techniques.
1102.3604
Algebraic Decoding of Negacyclic Codes Over Z_4
math.CO cs.IT math.IT
In this article we investigate Berlekamp's negacyclic codes and discover that these codes, when considered over the integers modulo 4, do not suffer any of the restrictions on the minimum distance observed in Berlekamp's original papers. The codes considered here have minimim Lee distance at least 2t+1, where the generator polynomial of the code has roots z,z^3,...,z^{2t+1} for a primitive 2nth root of unity z in a Galois extension of Z4. No restriction on t is imposed. We present an algebraic decoding algorithm for this class of codes that corrects any error pattern of Lee weight at most t. Our treatment uses Grobner bases and the decoding complexity is quadratic in t.
1102.3605
Nonbinary Quantum Codes from Two-Point Divisors on Hermitian Curves
cs.IT math.IT
Sarvepalli and Klappenecker showed how classical one-point codes on the Hermitian curve can be used to construct quantum codes. Homma and Kim determined the parameters of a larger family of codes, the two-point codes. In quantum error-correction, the observed presence of asymmetry in some quantum channels led to the study of asymmetric quantum codes (AQECCs) where we no longer assume that the different types of errors are equiprobable. This paper considers quantum codes constructed from the two-point codes. In the asymmetric case, we show strict improvements over all possible finite fields for a range of designed distances. We produce large dimension pure AQECC and small dimension impure AQECC that have better parameters than AQECC from one-point codes. Numerical results for the Hermitian curves over F16 and F64 are used to illustrate the gain.
1102.3617
Wireless Secrecy in Large-Scale Networks
cs.IT cs.NI math.IT
The ability to exchange secret information is critical to many commercial, governmental, and military networks. The intrinsically secure communications graph (iS-graph) is a random graph which describes the connections that can be securely established over a large-scale network, by exploiting the physical properties of the wireless medium. This paper provides an overview of the main properties of this new class of random graphs. We first analyze the local properties of the iS-graph, namely the degree distributions and their dependence on fading, target secrecy rate, and eavesdropper collusion. To mitigate the effect of the eavesdroppers, we propose two techniques that improve secure connectivity. Then, we analyze the global properties of the iS-graph, namely percolation on the infinite plane, and full connectivity on a finite region. These results help clarify how the presence of eavesdroppers can compromise secure communication in a large-scale network.
1102.3669
Efficient File Synchronization: a Distributed Source Coding Approach
cs.IT math.IT
The problem of reconstructing a source sequence with the presence of decoder side-information that is mis-synchronized to the source due to deletions is studied in a distributed source coding framework. Motivated by practical applications, the deletion process is assumed to be bursty and is modeled by a Markov chain. The minimum rate needed to reconstruct the source sequence with high probability is characterized in terms of an information theoretic expression, which is interpreted as the amount of information of the deleted content and the locations of deletions, subtracting "nature's secret", that is, the uncertainty of the locations given the source and side-information. For small bursty deletion probability, the asymptotic expansion of the minimum rate is computed.
1102.3680
Foundations for Understanding and Building Conscious Systems using Stable Parallel Looped Dynamics
cs.AI q-bio.NC
The problem of consciousness faced several challenges for a few reasons: (a) a lack of necessary and sufficient conditions, without which we would not know how close we are to the solution, (b) a lack of a synthesis framework to build conscious systems and (c) a lack of mechanisms explaining the transition between the lower-level chemical dynamics and the higher-level abstractions. In this paper, I address these issues using a new framework. The central result is that a person is 'minimally' conscious if and only if he knows at least one truth. This lets us move away from the vagueness surrounding consciousness and instead focus equivalently on: (i) what truths are and how our brain represents/relates them to each other and (ii) how we attain a feeling of knowing for a truth. For the former problem, since truths are things that do not change, I replace the abstract notion with a dynamical one called fixed sets. These sets are guaranteed to exist for our brain and other stable parallel looped systems. The relationships between everyday events are now built using relationships between fixed sets, until our brain creates a unique dynamical state called the self-sustaining threshold 'membrane' of fixed sets. For the latter problem, I present necessary and sufficient conditions for attaining a feeling of knowing using a definition of continuity applied to abstractions. Combining these results, I now say that a person is minimally conscious if and only if his brain has a self-sustaining dynamical membrane with abstract continuous paths. A synthetic system built to satisfy this equivalent self-sustaining membrane condition appears indistinguishable from human consciousness.
1102.3713
Optimal Control of Inhomogeneous Ensembles
math.OC cs.SY quant-ph
Inhomogeneity, in its many forms, appears frequently in practical physical systems. Readily apparent in quantum systems, inhomogeneity is caused by hardware imperfections, measurement inaccuracies, and environmental variations, and subsequently limits the performance and efficiency achievable in current experiments. In this paper, we provide a systematic methodology to mathematically characterize and optimally manipulate inhomogeneous ensembles with concepts taken from ensemble control. In particular, we develop a computational method to solve practical quantum pulse design problems cast as optimal ensemble control problems, based on multidimensional pseudospectral approximations. We motivate the utility of this method by designing pulses for both standard and novel applications. We also show the convergence of the pseudospectral method for optimal ensemble control. The concepts developed here are applicable beyond quantum control, such as to neuron systems, and furthermore to systems with by parameter uncertainty, which pervade all areas of science and engineering.
1102.3751
Utility-Privacy Tradeoff in Databases: An Information-theoretic Approach
cs.IT math.IT
Ensuring the usefulness of electronic data sources while providing necessary privacy guarantees is an important unsolved problem. This problem drives the need for an analytical framework that can quantify the safety of personally identifiable information (privacy) while still providing a quantifable benefit (utility) to multiple legitimate information consumers. This paper presents an information-theoretic framework that promises an analytical model guaranteeing tight bounds of how much utility is possible for a given level of privacy and vice-versa. Specific contributions include: i) stochastic data models for both categorical and numerical data; ii) utility-privacy tradeoff regions and the encoding (sanization) schemes achieving them for both classes and their practical relevance; and iii) modeling of prior knowledge at the user and/or data source and optimal encoding schemes for both cases.
1102.3755
Cooperative Wideband Spectrum Sensing for the Centralized Cognitive Radio Network
cs.IT math.IT
Various primary user (PU) radios have been allocated into fixed frequency bands in the whole spectrum. A cognitive radio network (CRN) should be able to perform the wideband spectrum sensing (WSS) to detect temporarily unoccupied frequency bands. We summarize four occupancy features for the frequency bands. 1. The occupancy is sparse; 2. The frequency band allocation information is fixed and common; 3. There are three categories for the frequency band usages; 4. The occupied frequency bands are common in the CRN. For the first time, we consider all features as the prior knowledge in the compressed sensing based cooperative WSS (CWSS) algorithm design for a centralized CRN. We propose a modified orthogonal matching pursuit (Mod-OMP) algorithm and a modified simultaneous orthogonal matching pursuit (Mod-SOMP) algorithm for the CWSS. We compare the CWSS performance of Mod-OMP/Mod-SOMP with the original OMP/SOMP and show the performance improvements.
1102.3758
Optimal Spectrum Management in Multiuser Interference Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we study the non-convex problem of continuous frequency optimal spectrum management in multiuser frequency selective interference channels. Firstly, a simple pairwise channel condition for FDMA schemes to achieve all Pareto optimal points of the rate region is derived. It enables fully distributed global optimal decision making on whether any two users should use orthogonal channels. Next, we present in detail an analytical solution to finding the global optimum of sum-rate maximization in two-user symmetric flat channels. Generalizing this solution to frequency selective channels, a convex optimization is established that solves the global optimum. Finally, we show that our method generalizes to K-user (K>=2) weighted sum-rate maximization in asymmetric frequency selective channels, and transform this classic non-convex optimization in the primal domain to an equivalent convex optimization. The complexity is shown to be separable in its dependence on the channel parameters and the power constraints.
1102.3763
On the Capacity Region of the Cognitive Interference Channel with Unidirectional Destination Cooperation
cs.IT math.IT
The cognitive interference channel with unidirectional destination cooperation (CIFC-UDC) is a variant of the cognitive interference channel (CIFC) where the cognitive (secondary) destination not only decodes the information sent from its sending dual but also helps enhance the communication of the primary user. This channel is an extension of the original CIFC to achieve a win-win solution under the coexistence condition. The CIFC-UDC comprises a broadcast channel (BC), a relay channel (RC), as well as a partially cooperative relay broadcast channel (PCRBC), and can be degraded to any one of them. In this paper, we propose a new achievable rate region for the dis-crete memoryless CIFC-UDC which improves the previous re-sults and includes the largest known rate regions of the BC, the RC, the PCRBC and the CIFC. A new outer bound is presented and proved to be tight for two classes of the CIFC-UDCs, result-ing in the characterization of the capacity region.
1102.3828
Searching in one billion vectors: re-rank with source coding
cs.IR cs.CV
Recent indexing techniques inspired by source coding have been shown successful to index billions of high-dimensional vectors in memory. In this paper, we propose an approach that re-ranks the neighbor hypotheses obtained by these compressed-domain indexing methods. In contrast to the usual post-verification scheme, which performs exact distance calculation on the short-list of hypotheses, the estimated distances are refined based on short quantization codes, to avoid reading the full vectors from disk. We have released a new public dataset of one billion 128-dimensional vectors and proposed an experimental setup to evaluate high dimensional indexing algorithms on a realistic scale. Experiments show that our method accurately and efficiently re-ranks the neighbor hypotheses using little memory compared to the full vectors representation.
1102.3830
A linear framework for region-based image segmentation and inpainting involving curvature penalization
cs.CV cs.AI math.OC
We present the first method to handle curvature regularity in region-based image segmentation and inpainting that is independent of initialization. To this end we start from a new formulation of length-based optimization schemes, based on surface continuation constraints, and discuss the connections to existing schemes. The formulation is based on a \emph{cell complex} and considers basic regions and boundary elements. The corresponding optimization problem is cast as an integer linear program. We then show how the method can be extended to include curvature regularity, again cast as an integer linear program. Here, we are considering pairs of boundary elements to reflect curvature. Moreover, a constraint set is derived to ensure that the boundary variables indeed reflect the boundary of the regions described by the region variables. We show that by solving the linear programming relaxation one gets quite close to the global optimum, and that curvature regularity is indeed much better suited in the presence of long and thin objects compared to standard length regularity.
1102.3833
Aligned Interference Neutralization and the Degrees of Freedom of the 2 User Interference Channel with Instantaneous Relay
cs.IT math.IT
It is well known that the classical 2 user Gaussian interference channel has only 1 degree of freedom (DoF), which can be achieved by orthogonal time division among the 2 users. It is also known that the use of conventional relays, which introduce a processing delay of at least one symbol duration relative to the direct paths between sources and destinations, does not increase the DoF of the 2 user interference channel. The use of instantaneous relays (relays-without-delay) has been explored for the single user point-to-point setting and it is known that such a relay, even with memoryless forwarding at the relay, can achieve a higher capacity than conventional relays. In this work, we show that the 2 user interference channel with an instantaneous relay, achieves 3/2 DoF. Thus, an instantaneous relay increases not only the capacity but also the DoF of the 2 user interference channel. The achievable scheme is inspired by the aligned interference neutralization scheme recently proposed for the 2X2X2 interference channel. Remarkably the DoF gain is achieved with memoryless relays, i.e., with relays that have no memory of past received symbols.
1102.3852
On the Gain of Joint Processing of Pilot and Data Symbols in Stationary Rayleigh Fading Channels
cs.IT math.IT
In many typical mobile communication receivers the channel is estimated based on pilot symbols to allow for a coherent detection and decoding in a separate processing step. Currently much work is spent on receivers which break up this separation, e.g., by enhancing channel estimation based on reliability information on the data symbols. In the present work, we evaluate the possible gain of a joint processing of data and pilot symbols in comparison to the case of a separate processing in the context of stationary Rayleigh flat-fading channels. Therefore, we discuss the nature of the possible gain of a joint processing of pilot and data symbols. We show that the additional information that can be gained by a joint processing is captured in the temporal correlation of the channel estimation error of the solely pilot based channel estimation, which is not retrieved by the channel decoder in case of separate processing. In addition, we derive a new lower bound on the achievable rate for joint processing of pilot and data symbols.
1102.3865
Probability Based Clustering for Document and User Properties
cs.HC cs.IR
Information Retrieval systems can be improved by exploiting context information such as user and document features. This article presents a model based on overlapping probabilistic or fuzzy clusters for such features. The model is applied within a fusion method which linearly combines several retrieval systems. The fusion is based on weights for the different retrieval systems which are learned by exploiting relevance feedback information. This calculation can be improved by maintaining a model for each document and user cluster. That way, the optimal retrieval system for each document or user type can be identified and applied. The extension presented in this article allows overlapping, probabilistic clusters of features to further refine the process.
1102.3866
Treatment of Semantic Heterogeneity in Information Retrieval
cs.IR
The first step to handle semantic heterogeneity should be the attempt to enrich the semantic information about documents, i.e. to fill up the gaps in the documents meta-data automatically. Section 2 describes a set of cascading deductive and heuristic extraction rules, which were developed in the project CARMEN for the domain of Social Sciences. The mapping between different terminologies can be done by using intellectual, statistical and/or neural network transfer modules. Intellectual transfers use cross-concordances between different classification schemes or thesauri. Section 3 describes the creation, storage and handling of such transfers.
1102.3867
Controllability properties for the one-dimensional Heat equation under multiplicative or nonnegative additive controls with local mobile support
math.OC cs.SY
We discuss several new results on nonnegative approximate controllability for the one-dimensional Heat equation governed by either multiplicative or nonnegative additive control, acting within a proper subset of the space domain at every moment of time. Our methods allow us to link these two types of controls to some extend. The main results include approximate controllability properties both for the static and mobile control supports.
1102.3868
Evolved preambles for MAX-SAT heuristics
cs.AI cs.NE
MAX-SAT heuristics normally operate from random initial truth assignments to the variables. We consider the use of what we call preambles, which are sequences of variables with corresponding single-variable assignment actions intended to be used to determine a more suitable initial truth assignment for a given problem instance and a given heuristic. For a number of well established MAX-SAT heuristics and benchmark instances, we demonstrate that preambles can be evolved by a genetic algorithm such that the heuristics are outperformed in a significant fraction of the cases.
1102.3887
Active Clustering: Robust and Efficient Hierarchical Clustering using Adaptively Selected Similarities
cs.IT cs.LG math.IT stat.ML
Hierarchical clustering based on pairwise similarities is a common tool used in a broad range of scientific applications. However, in many problems it may be expensive to obtain or compute similarities between the items to be clustered. This paper investigates the hierarchical clustering of N items based on a small subset of pairwise similarities, significantly less than the complete set of N(N-1)/2 similarities. First, we show that if the intracluster similarities exceed intercluster similarities, then it is possible to correctly determine the hierarchical clustering from as few as 3N log N similarities. We demonstrate this order of magnitude savings in the number of pairwise similarities necessitates sequentially selecting which similarities to obtain in an adaptive fashion, rather than picking them at random. We then propose an active clustering method that is robust to a limited fraction of anomalous similarities, and show how even in the presence of these noisy similarity values we can resolve the hierarchical clustering using only O(N log^2 N) pairwise similarities.
1102.3902
Polytope of Correct (Linear Programming) Decoding and Low-Weight Pseudo-Codewords
cs.IT math.IT
We analyze Linear Programming (LP) decoding of graphical binary codes operating over soft-output, symmetric and log-concave channels. We show that the error-surface, separating domain of the correct decoding from domain of the erroneous decoding, is a polytope. We formulate the problem of finding the lowest-weight pseudo-codeword as a non-convex optimization (maximization of a convex function) over a polytope, with the cost function defined by the channel and the polytope defined by the structure of the code. This formulation suggests new provably convergent heuristics for finding the lowest weight pseudo-codewords improving in quality upon previously discussed. The algorithm performance is tested on the example of the Tanner [155, 64, 20] code over the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel.
1102.3919
Inferring Disease and Gene Set Associations with Rank Coherence in Networks
q-bio.GN cs.AI cs.LG q-bio.MN
A computational challenge to validate the candidate disease genes identified in a high-throughput genomic study is to elucidate the associations between the set of candidate genes and disease phenotypes. The conventional gene set enrichment analysis often fails to reveal associations between disease phenotypes and the gene sets with a short list of poorly annotated genes, because the existing annotations of disease causative genes are incomplete. We propose a network-based computational approach called rcNet to discover the associations between gene sets and disease phenotypes. Assuming coherent associations between the genes ranked by their relevance to the query gene set, and the disease phenotypes ranked by their relevance to the hidden target disease phenotypes of the query gene set, we formulate a learning framework maximizing the rank coherence with respect to the known disease phenotype-gene associations. An efficient algorithm coupling ridge regression with label propagation, and two variants are introduced to find the optimal solution of the framework. We evaluated the rcNet algorithms and existing baseline methods with both leave-one-out cross-validation and a task of predicting recently discovered disease-gene associations in OMIM. The experiments demonstrated that the rcNet algorithms achieved the best overall rankings compared to the baselines. To further validate the reproducibility of the performance, we applied the algorithms to identify the target diseases of novel candidate disease genes obtained from recent studies of GWAS, DNA copy number variation analysis, and gene expression profiling. The algorithms ranked the target disease of the candidate genes at the top of the rank list in many cases across all the three case studies. The rcNet algorithms are available as a webtool for disease and gene set association analysis at http://compbio.cs.umn.edu/dgsa_rcNet.
1102.3923
Concentration-Based Guarantees for Low-Rank Matrix Reconstruction
cs.LG stat.ML
We consider the problem of approximately reconstructing a partially-observed, approximately low-rank matrix. This problem has received much attention lately, mostly using the trace-norm as a surrogate to the rank. Here we study low-rank matrix reconstruction using both the trace-norm, as well as the less-studied max-norm, and present reconstruction guarantees based on existing analysis on the Rademacher complexity of the unit balls of these norms. We show how these are superior in several ways to recently published guarantees based on specialized analysis.
1102.3931
Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities
physics.soc-ph cond-mat.stat-mech cs.SI
We show how the prevailing majority opinion in a population can be rapidly reversed by a small fraction p of randomly distributed committed agents who consistently proselytize the opposing opinion and are immune to influence. Specifically, we show that when the committed fraction grows beyond a critical value p_c \approx 10%, there is a dramatic decrease in the time, T_c, taken for the entire population to adopt the committed opinion. In particular, for complete graphs we show that when p < p_c, T_c \sim \exp(\alpha(p)N), while for p > p_c, T_c \sim \ln N. We conclude with simulation results for Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graphs and scale-free networks which show qualitatively similar behavior.
1102.3936
AWGN Channel Analysis of Terminated LDPC Convolutional Codes
cs.IT math.IT
It has previously been shown that ensembles of terminated protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) convolutional codes have a typical minimum distance that grows linearly with block length and that they are capable of achieving capacity approaching iterative decoding thresholds on the binary erasure channel (BEC). In this paper, we review a recent result that the dramatic threshold improvement obtained by terminating LDPC convolutional codes extends to the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. Also, using a (3,6)-regular protograph-based LDPC convolutional code ensemble as an example, we perform an asymptotic trapping set analysis of terminated LDPC convolutional code ensembles. In addition to capacity approaching iterative decoding thresholds and linearly growing minimum distance, we find that the smallest non-empty trapping set of a terminated ensemble grows linearly with block length.
1102.3937
Axiomatic Ranking of Network Role Similarity
cs.SI physics.soc-ph
A key task in social network and other complex network analysis is role analysis: describing and categorizing nodes according to how they interact with other nodes. Two nodes have the same role if they interact with equivalent sets of neighbors. The most fundamental role equivalence is automorphic equivalence. Unfortunately, the fastest algorithms known for graph automorphism are nonpolynomial. Moreover, since exact equivalence may be rare, a more meaningful task is to measure the role similarity between any two nodes. This task is closely related to the structural or link-based similarity problem that SimRank attempts to solve. However, SimRank and most of its offshoots are not sufficient because they do not fully recognize automorphically or structurally equivalent nodes. In this paper we tackle two problems. First, what are the necessary properties for a role similarity measure or metric? Second, how can we derive a role similarity measure satisfying these properties? For the first problem, we justify several axiomatic properties necessary for a role similarity measure or metric: range, maximal similarity, automorphic equivalence, transitive similarity, and the triangle inequality. For the second problem, we present RoleSim, a new similarity metric with a simple iterative computational method. We rigorously prove that RoleSim satisfies all the axiomatic properties. We also introduce an iceberg RoleSim algorithm which can guarantee to discover all pairs with RoleSim score no less than a user-defined threshold $\theta$ without computing the RoleSim for every pair. We demonstrate the superior interpretative power of RoleSim on both both synthetic and real datasets.
1102.3939
A Sub-Space Method to Detect Multiple Wireless Microphone Signals in TV Band White Space
cs.IT math.IT stat.AP
The main hurdle in the realization of dynamic spectrum access (DSA) systems from physical layer perspective is the reliable sensing of low power licensed users. One such scenario shows up in the unlicensed use of TV bands where the TV Band Devices (TVBDs) are required to sense extremely low power wireless microphones (WMs). The lack of technical standard among various wireless manufacturers and the resemblance of certain WM signals to narrow-band interference signals, such as spurious emissions, further aggravate the problem. Due to these uncertainties, it is extremely difficult to abstract the features of WM signals and hence develop robust sensing algorithms. To partly counter these challenges, we develop a two-stage sub-space algorithm that detects multiple narrow-band analog frequency-modulated signals generated by WMs. The performance of the algorithm is verified by using experimentally captured low power WM signals with received power ranging from -100 to -105 dBm. The problem of differentiating between the WM and other narrow-band signals is left as a future work.
1102.3944
Fixed-length lossy compression in the finite blocklength regime
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the minimum achievable source coding rate as a function of blocklength $n$ and probability $\epsilon$ that the distortion exceeds a given level $d$. Tight general achievability and converse bounds are derived that hold at arbitrary fixed blocklength. For stationary memoryless sources with separable distortion, the minimum rate achievable is shown to be closely approximated by $R(d) + \sqrt{\frac{V(d)}{n}} Q^{-1}(\epsilon)$, where $R(d)$ is the rate-distortion function, $V(d)$ is the rate dispersion, a characteristic of the source which measures its stochastic variability, and $Q^{-1}(\epsilon)$ is the inverse of the standard Gaussian complementary cdf.
1102.3947
Subspace Expanders and Matrix Rank Minimization
cs.IT math.IT
Matrix rank minimization (RM) problems recently gained extensive attention due to numerous applications in machine learning, system identification and graphical models. In RM problem, one aims to find the matrix with the lowest rank that satisfies a set of linear constraints. The existing algorithms include nuclear norm minimization (NNM) and singular value thresholding. Thus far, most of the attention has been on i.i.d. Gaussian measurement operators. In this work, we introduce a new class of measurement operators, and a novel recovery algorithm, which is notably faster than NNM. The proposed operators are based on what we refer to as subspace expanders, which are inspired by the well known expander graphs based measurement matrices in compressed sensing. We show that given an $n\times n$ PSD matrix of rank $r$, it can be uniquely recovered from a minimal sampling of $O(nr)$ measurements using the proposed structures, and the recovery algorithm can be cast as matrix inversion after a few initial processing steps.
1102.3949
Sparse Signal Recovery with Temporally Correlated Source Vectors Using Sparse Bayesian Learning
stat.ML cs.LG
We address the sparse signal recovery problem in the context of multiple measurement vectors (MMV) when elements in each nonzero row of the solution matrix are temporally correlated. Existing algorithms do not consider such temporal correlations and thus their performance degrades significantly with the correlations. In this work, we propose a block sparse Bayesian learning framework which models the temporal correlations. In this framework we derive two sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) algorithms, which have superior recovery performance compared to existing algorithms, especially in the presence of high temporal correlations. Furthermore, our algorithms are better at handling highly underdetermined problems and require less row-sparsity on the solution matrix. We also provide analysis of the global and local minima of their cost function, and show that the SBL cost function has the very desirable property that the global minimum is at the sparsest solution to the MMV problem. Extensive experiments also provide some interesting results that motivate future theoretical research on the MMV model.
1102.3989
Self-organization in social tagging systems
physics.soc-ph cs.SI
Individuals often imitate each other to fall into the typical group, leading to a self-organized state of typical behaviors in a community. In this paper, we model self-organization in social tagging systems and illustrate the underlying interaction and dynamics. Specifically, we introduce a model in which individuals adjust their own tagging tendency to imitate the average tagging tendency. We found that when users are of low confidence, they tend to imitate others and lead to a self-organized state with active tagging. On the other hand, when users are of high confidence and are stubborn for changes, tagging becomes inactive. We observe a phase transition at a critical level of user confidence when the system changes from one regime to the other. The distributions of post length obtained from the model are compared to real data which show good agreements.
1102.4021
Privacy Preserving Spam Filtering
cs.LG cs.CR
Email is a private medium of communication, and the inherent privacy constraints form a major obstacle in developing effective spam filtering methods which require access to a large amount of email data belonging to multiple users. To mitigate this problem, we envision a privacy preserving spam filtering system, where the server is able to train and evaluate a logistic regression based spam classifier on the combined email data of all users without being able to observe any emails using primitives such as homomorphic encryption and randomization. We analyze the protocols for correctness and security, and perform experiments of a prototype system on a large scale spam filtering task. State of the art spam filters often use character n-grams as features which result in large sparse data representation, which is not feasible to be used directly with our training and evaluation protocols. We explore various data independent dimensionality reduction which decrease the running time of the protocol making it feasible to use in practice while achieving high accuracy.
1102.4085
On the Benefits of Partial Channel State Information for Repetition Protocols in Block Fading Channels
cs.IT math.IT
This paper studies the throughput performance of HARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request) protocols over block fading Gaussian channels. It proposes new protocols that use the available feedback bit(s) not only to request a retransmission, but also to inform the transmitter about the instantaneous channel quality. An explicit protocol construction is given for any number of retransmissions and any number of feedback bits. The novel protocol is shown to simultaneously realize the gains of HARQ and of power control with partial CSI (channel state information). Remarkable throughput improvements are shown, especially at low and moderate SNR (signal to noise ratio), with respect to protocols that use the feedback bits for retransmission request only. In particular, for the case of a single retransmission and a single feedback bit, it is shown that the repetition is not needed at low $\snr$ where the throughput improvement is due to power control only. On the other hand, at high SNR, the repetition is useful and the performance gain comes form a combination of power control and ability of make up for deep fades.
1102.4086
Schroedinger Eigenmaps for the Analysis of Bio-Medical Data
cs.CE physics.data-an physics.med-ph q-bio.QM
We introduce Schroedinger Eigenmaps, a new semi-supervised manifold learning and recovery technique. This method is based on an implementation of graph Schroedinger operators with appropriately constructed barrier potentials as carriers of labeled information. We use our approach for the analysis of standard bio-medical datasets and new multispectral retinal images.
1102.4099
Capacity Achieving Linear Codes with Random Binary Sparse Generating Matrices
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we prove the existence of capacity achieving linear codes with random binary sparse generating matrices. The results on the existence of capacity achieving linear codes in the literature are limited to the random binary codes with equal probability generating matrix elements and sparse parity-check matrices. Moreover, the codes with sparse generating matrices reported in the literature are not proved to be capacity achieving. As opposed to the existing results in the literature, which are based on optimal maximum a posteriori decoders, the proposed approach is based on a different decoder and consequently is suboptimal. We also demonstrate an interesting trade-off between the sparsity of the generating matrix and the error exponent (a constant which determines how exponentially fast the probability of error decays as block length tends to infinity). An interesting observation is that for small block sizes, less sparse generating matrices have better performances while for large blok sizes, the performance of the random generating matrices become independent of the sparsity. Moreover, we prove the existence of capacity achieving linear codes with a given (arbitrarily low) density of ones on rows of the generating matrix. In addition to proving the existence of capacity achieving sparse codes, an important conclusion of our paper is that for a sufficiently large code length, no search is necessary in practice to find a deterministic matrix by proving that any arbitrarily selected sequence of sparse generating matrices is capacity achieving with high probability. The focus in this paper is on the binary symmetric and binary erasure channels.her discrete memory-less symmetric channels.
1102.4104
Characterizing Discriminative Patterns
cs.DB cs.IT math.IT q-bio.GN
Discriminative patterns are association patterns that occur with disproportionate frequency in some classes versus others, and have been studied under names such as emerging patterns and contrast sets. Such patterns have demonstrated considerable value for classification and subgroup discovery, but a detailed understanding of the types of interactions among items in a discriminative pattern is lacking. To address this issue, we propose to categorize discriminative patterns according to four types of item interaction: (i) driver-passenger, (ii) coherent, (iii) independent additive and (iv) synergistic beyond independent additive. Either of the last three is of practical importance, with the latter two representing a gain in the discriminative power of a pattern over its subsets. Synergistic patterns are most restrictive, but perhaps the most interesting since they capture a cooperative effect. For domains such as genetic research, differentiating among these types of patterns is critical since each yields very different biological interpretations. For general domains, the characterization provides a novel view of the nature of the discriminative patterns in a dataset, which yields insights beyond those provided by current approaches that focus mostly on pattern-based classification and subgroup discovery. This paper presents a comprehensive discussion that defines these four pattern types and investigates their properties and their relationship to one another. In addition, these ideas are explored for a variety of datasets (ten UCI datasets, one gene expression dataset and two genetic-variation datasets). The results demonstrate the existence, characteristics and statistical significance of the different types of patterns. They also illustrate how pattern characterization can provide novel insights into discriminative pattern mining and the discriminative structure of different datasets.
1102.4126
Multiuser Cognitive Radio Networks: An Information Theoretic Perspective
cs.IT math.IT
Achievable rate regions and outer bounds are derived for three-user interference channels where the transmitters cooperate in a unidirectional manner via a noncausal message-sharing mechanism. The three-user channel facilitates different ways of message-sharing between the primary and secondary (or cognitive) transmitters. Three natural extensions of unidirectional message-sharing from two users to three users are introduced: (i) Cumulative message sharing; (ii) primary-only message sharing; and (iii) cognitive-only message sharing. To emphasize the notion of interference management, channels are classified based on different rate-splitting strategies at the transmitters. Standard techniques, superposition coding and Gel'fand-Pinsker's binning principle, are employed to derive an achievable rate region for each of the cognitive interference channels. Simulation results for the Gaussian channel case are presented; they enable visual comparison of the achievable rate regions for different message-sharing schemes along with the outer bounds. These results also provide useful insights into the effect of rate-splitting at the transmitters, which aids in better interference management at the receivers.
1102.4132
Optimal dividend control for a generalized risk model with investment incomes and debit interest
math.OC cs.SY q-fin.RM
This paper investigates dividend optimization of an insurance corporation under a more realistic model which takes into consideration refinancing or capital injections. The model follows the compound Poisson framework with credit interest for positive reserve, and debit interest for negative reserve. Ruin occurs when the reserve drops below the critical value. The company controls the dividend pay-out dynamically with the objective to maximize the expected total discounted dividends until ruin. We show that that the optimal strategy is a band strategy and it is optimal to pay no dividends when the reserve is negative.
1102.4135
Location Cheating: A Security Challenge to Location-based Social Network Services
cs.SI cs.CR
Location-based mobile social network services such as foursquare and Gowalla have grown exponentially over the past several years. These location-based services utilize the geographical position to enrich user experiences in a variety of contexts, including location-based searching and location-based mobile advertising. To attract more users, the location-based mobile social network services provide real-world rewards to the user, when a user checks in at a certain venue or location. This gives incentives for users to cheat on their locations. In this report, we investigate the threat of location cheating attacks, find the root cause of the vulnerability, and outline the possible defending mechanisms. We use foursquare as an example to introduce a novel location cheating attack, which can easily pass the current location verification mechanism (e.g., cheater code of foursquare). We also crawl the foursquare website. By analyzing the crawled data, we show that automated large scale cheating is possible. Through this work, we aim to call attention to location cheating in mobile social network services and provide insights into the defending mechanisms.
1102.4137
Using Distributed Rotations for a Low-Complexity Dynamic Decode-and-Forward Relay Protocol
cs.IT math.IT
In this paper, we propose to implement the dynamic decode-and-forward (DDF) protocol with distributed rotations. In addition to being the first minimum-delay implementation of the DDF protocol proposed for any number of relays, this technique allows to exploit cooperative diversity without inducing the high decoding complexity of a space-time code. The analysis of outage probabilities for different number of relays and rotations shows that the performance of this technique is close to optimal. Moreover, a lower-bound on the diversity-multiplexing gain tradeoff (DMT) is provided in the case of a single relay and two rotations. This lower-bound reaches the optimal DDF's DMT when the frame-length grows to infinity, which shows that even a small number of rotations is enough to obtain good performance.
1102.4180
Characterizing and approximating eigenvalue sets of symmetric interval matrices
cs.RO
We consider the eigenvalue problem for the case where the input matrix is symmetric and its entries perturb in some given intervals. We present a characterization of some of the exact boundary points, which allows us to introduce an inner approximation algorithm, that in many case estimates exact bounds. To our knowledge, this is the first algorithm that is able to guaran- tee exactness. We illustrate our approach by several examples and numerical experiments.