OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Designing Autonomous Vehicles: Evaluating the Role of Human Emotions and Social Norms
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2017
Year: 2017

Humans are going to delegate the rights of driving to the autonomous vehicles in near future. However, to fulfill this complicated task, there is a need for a mechanism, which enforces the autonomous vehicles to obey the road and social rules that have been practiced by well-behaved drivers. This task can be achieved by introducing social norms compliance mechanism in the autonomous vehicles. This research paper is proposing an artificial society of autonomous vehicles as an analogy of human social society. Each AV has been assigned a social personality having different social influence. Social norms have been introduced which help the AVs in making the decisions, influenced by emotions, regarding road collision avoidance. Furthermore, social norms compliance mechanism, by artificial social AVs, has been proposed using prospect based emotion i.e. fear, which is conceived from OCC model. Fuzzy logic has been employed to compute the emotions quantitatively. Then, using SimConnect approach, fuzzy values of fear has been provided to the Netlogo simulation environment to simulate artificial society of AVs. Extensive testing has been performed using the behavior space tool to find out the performance of the proposed approach in terms of the number of collisions. For comparison, the random-walk model based artificial society of AVs has been proposed as well. A comparative study with a random walk, prove that proposed approach provides a better option to tailor the autopilots of future AVS, Which will be more socially acceptable and trustworthy by their riders in terms of safe road travel.
Rookie: A unique approach for exploring news archives
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2017
Year: 2017

News archives are an invaluable primary source for placing current events in historical context. But current search engine tools do a poor job at uncovering broad themes and narratives across documents. We present Rookie: a practical software system which uses natural language processing (NLP) to help readers, reporters and editors uncover broad stories in news archives. Unlike prior work, Rookie's design emerged from 18 months of iterative development in consultation with editors and computational journalists. This process lead to a dramatically different approach from previous academic systems with similar goals. Our efforts offer a generalizable case study for others building real-world journalism software using NLP.
Intensity Video Guided 4D Fusion for Improved Highly Dynamic 3D Reconstruction
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2017
Year: 2017

The availability of high-speed 3D video sensors has greatly facilitated 3D shape acquisition of dynamic and deformable objects, but high frame rate 3D reconstruction is always degraded by spatial noise and temporal fluctuations. This paper presents a simple yet powerful intensity video guided multi-frame 4D fusion pipeline. Temporal tracking of intensity image points (of moving and deforming objects) allows registration of the corresponding 3D data points, whose 3D noise and fluctuations are then reduced by spatio-temporal multi-frame 4D fusion. We conducted simulated noise tests and real experiments on four 3D objects using a 1000 fps 3D video sensor. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is effective at reducing 3D noise and is robust against intensity noise. It outperforms existing algorithms with good scalability on both stationary and dynamic objects.
CRAFT: A library for easier application-level Checkpoint/Restart and Automatic Fault Tolerance
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2017
Year: 2017

In order to efficiently use the future generations of supercomputers, fault tolerance and power consumption are two of the prime challenges anticipated by the High Performance Computing (HPC) community. Checkpoint/Restart (CR) has been and still is the most widely used technique to deal with hard failures. Application-level CR is the most effective CR technique in terms of overhead efficiency but it takes a lot of implementation effort. This work presents the implementation of our C++ based library CRAFT (Checkpoint-Restart and Automatic Fault Tolerance), which serves two purposes. First, it provides an extendable library that significantly eases the implementation of application-level checkpointing. The most basic and frequently used checkpoint data types are already part of CRAFT and can be directly used out of the box. The library can be easily extended to add more data types. As means of overhead reduction, the library offers a build-in asynchronous checkpointing mechanism and also supports the Scalable Checkpoint/Restart (SCR) library for node level checkpointing. Second, CRAFT provides an easier interface for User-Level Failure Mitigation (ULFM) based dynamic process recovery, which significantly reduces the complexity and effort of failure detection and communication recovery mechanism. By utilizing both functionalities together, applications can write application-level checkpoints and recover dynamically from process failures with very limited programming effort. This work presents the design and use of our library in detail. The associated overheads are thoroughly analyzed using several benchmarks.
Aktuelle Entwicklungen in der Automatischen Musikverfolgung
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2017
Year: 2017

In this paper we present current trends in real-time music tracking (a.k.a. score following). Casually speaking, these algorithms "listen" to a live performance of music, compare the audio signal to an abstract representation of the score, and "read" along in the sheet music. In this way at any given time the exact position of the musician(s) in the sheet music is computed. Here, we focus on the aspects of flexibility and usability of these algorithms. This comprises work on automatic identification and flexible tracking of the piece being played as well as current approaches based on Deep Learning. The latter enables direct learning of correspondences between complex audio data and images of the sheet music, avoiding the complicated and time-consuming definition of a mid-level representation. ----- Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit aktuellen Entwicklungen in der automatischen Musikverfolgung durch den Computer. Es handelt sich dabei um Algorithmen, die einer musikalischen Aufführung "zuhören", das aufgenommene Audiosignal mit einer (abstrakten) Repräsentation des Notentextes vergleichen und sozusagen in diesem mitlesen. Der Algorithmus kennt also zu jedem Zeitpunkt die Position der Musiker im Notentext. Neben der Vermittlung eines generellen Überblicks, liegt der Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit auf der Beleuchtung des Aspekts der Flexibilität und der einfacheren Nutzbarkeit dieser Algorithmen. Es wird dargelegt, welche Schritte getätigt wurden (und aktuell getätigt werden) um den Prozess der automatischen Musikverfolgung einfacher zugänglich zu machen. Dies umfasst Arbeiten zur automatischen Identifikation von gespielten Stücken und deren flexible Verfolgung ebenso wie aktuelle Ansätze mithilfe von Deep Learning, die es erlauben Bild und Ton direkt zu verbinden, ohne Umwege über abstrakte und nur unter großem Zeitaufwand zu erstellende Zwischenrepräsentationen.
STARDATA: A StarCraft AI Research Dataset
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2017
Year: 2017

We release a dataset of 65646 StarCraft replays that contains 1535 million frames and 496 million player actions. We provide full game state data along with the original replays that can be viewed in StarCraft. The game state data was recorded every 3 frames which ensures suitability for a wide variety of machine learning tasks such as strategy classification, inverse reinforcement learning, imitation learning, forward modeling, partial information extraction, and others. We use TorchCraft to extract and store the data, which standardizes the data format for both reading from replays and reading directly from the game. Furthermore, the data can be used on different operating systems and platforms. The dataset contains valid, non-corrupted replays only and its quality and diversity was ensured by a number of heuristics. We illustrate the diversity of the data with various statistics and provide examples of tasks that benefit from the dataset. We make the dataset available at https://github.com/TorchCraft/StarData . En Taro Adun!
Reverse Engineering Human Mobility in Large-scale Natural Disasters
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2017
Year: 2017

Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) have been around for more than a decade and have especially been proposed to be used in scenarios where communication infrastructure is unavailable. In such scenarios, DTNs can offer a best-effort communication service by exploiting user mobility. Natural disasters are an important application scenario for DTNs when the cellular network is destroyed by natural forces. To assess the performance of such networks before deployment, we require appropriate knowledge of human mobility. In this paper, we address this problem by designing, implementing, and evaluating a novel mobility model for large-scale natural disasters. Due to the lack of GPS traces, we reverse-engineer human mobility of past natural disasters (focusing on 2010 Haiti earthquake and 2013 Typhoon Haiyan) by leveraging knowledge of 126 experts from 71 Disaster Response Organizations (DROs). By means of simulation-based experiments, we compare and contrast our mobility model to other well-known models, and evaluate their impact on DTN performance. Finally, we make our source code available to the public.
Classification and Analysis of Communication Protection Policy Anomalies
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2017
Year: 2017

This paper presents a classification of the anomalies that can appear when designing or implementing communication protection policies. Together with the already known intra- and inter-policy anomaly types, we introduce a novel category, the inter-technology anomalies, related to security controls implementing different technologies, both within the same network node and among different network nodes. Through an empirical assessment, we prove the practical significance of detecting this new anomaly class. Furthermore, this paper introduces a formal model, based on first-order logic rules that analyses the network topology and the security controls at each node to identify the detected anomalies and suggest the strategies to resolve them. This formal model has manageable computational complexity and its implementation has shown excellent performance and good scalability.
Robust Dynamic Locomotion via Reinforcement Learning and Novel Whole Body Controller
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2017
Year: 2017

We propose a robust dynamic walking controller consisting of a dynamic locomotion planner, a reinforcement learning process for robustness, and a novel whole-body locomotion controller (WBLC). Previous approaches specify either the position or the timing of steps, however, the proposed locomotion planner simultaneously computes both of these parameters as locomotion outputs. Our locomotion strategy relies on devising a reinforcement learning (RL) approach for robust walking. The learned policy generates multi step walking patterns, and the process is quick enough to be suitable for real-time controls. For learning, we devise an RL strategy that uses a phase space planner (PSP) and a linear inverted pendulum model to make the problem tractable and very fast. Then, the learned policy is used to provide goal-based commands to the WBLC, which calculates the torque commands to be executed in full-humanoid robots. The WBLC combines multiple prioritized tasks and calculates the associated reaction forces based on practical inequality constraints. The novel formulation includes efficient calculation of the time derivatives of various Jacobians. This provides high-fidelity dynamic control of fast motions. More specifically, we compute the time derivative of the Jacobian for various tasks and the Jacobian of the centroidal momentum task by utilizing Lie group operators and operational space dynamics respectively. The integration of RL-PSP and the WBLC provides highly robust, versatile, and practical locomotion including steering while walking and handling push disturbances of up to 520 N during an interval of 0.1 sec. Theoretical and numerical results are tested through a 3D physics-based simulation of the humanoid robot Valkyrie.
Automatic Raga Recognition in Hindustani Classical Music
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2017
Year: 2017

Raga is the central melodic concept in Hindustani Classical Music. It has a complex structure, often characterized by pathos. In this paper, we describe a technique for Automatic Raga Recognition, based on pitch distributions. We are able to successfully classify ragas with a commendable accuracy on our test dataset.
Verification & Validation of Agent Based Simulations using the VOMAS (Virtual Overlay Multi-agent System) approach
Venue: arXiv cs.MA 2017
Year: 2017

Agent Based Models are very popular in a number of different areas. For example, they have been used in a range of domains ranging from modeling of tumor growth, immune systems, molecules to models of social networks, crowds and computer and mobile self-organizing networks. One reason for their success is their intuitiveness and similarity to human cognition. However, with this power of abstraction, in spite of being easily applicable to such a wide number of domains, it is hard to validate agent-based models. In addition, building valid and credible simulations is not just a challenging task but also a crucial exercise to ensure that what we are modeling is, at some level of abstraction, a model of our conceptual system; the system that we have in mind. In this paper, we address this important area of validation of agent based models by presenting a novel technique which has broad applicability and can be applied to all kinds of agent-based models. We present a framework, where a virtual overlay multi-agent system can be used to validate simulation models. In addition, since agent-based models have been typically growing, in parallel, in multiple domains, to cater for all of these, we present a new single validation technique applicable to all agent based models. Our technique, which allows for the validation of agent based simulations uses VOMAS: a Virtual Overlay Multi-agent System. This overlay multi-agent system can comprise various types of agents, which form an overlay on top of the agent based simulation model that needs to be validated. Other than being able to watch and log, each of these agents contains clearly defined constraints, which, if violated, can be logged in real time. To demonstrate its effectiveness, we show its broad applicability in a wide variety of simulation models ranging from social sciences to computer networks in spatial and non-spatial conceptual models.
Structural patterns of information cascades and their implications for dynamics and semantics
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2017
Year: 2017

Information cascades are ubiquitous in both physical society and online social media, taking on large variations in structures, dynamics and semantics. Although the dynamics and semantics of information cascades have been studied, the structural patterns and their correlations with dynamics and semantics are largely unknown. Here we explore a large-scale dataset including $432$ million information cascades with explicit records of spreading traces, spreading behaviors, information content as well as user profiles. We find that the structural complexity of information cascades is far beyond the previous conjectures. We first propose a ten-dimensional metric to quantify the structural characteristics of information cascades, reflecting cascade size, silhouette, direction and activity aspects. We find that bimodal law governs majority of the metrics, information flows in cascades have four directions, and the self-loop number and average activity of cascades follows power law. We then analyze the high-order structural patterns of information cascades. Finally, we evaluate to what extent the structural features of information cascades can explain its dynamic patterns and semantics, and finally uncover some notable implications of structural patterns in information cascades. Our discoveries also provide a foundation for the microscopic mechanisms for information spreading, potentially leading to implications for cascade prediction and outlier detection.
Ghera: A Repository of Android App Vulnerability Benchmarks
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2017
Year: 2017

Security of mobile apps affects the security of their users. This has fueled the development of techniques to automatically detect vulnerabilities in mobile apps and help developers secure their apps; specifically, in the context of Android platform due to openness and ubiquitousness of the platform. Despite a slew of research efforts in this space, there is no comprehensive repository of up-to-date and lean benchmarks that contain most of the known Android app vulnerabilities and, consequently, can be used to rigorously evaluate both existing and new vulnerability detection techniques and help developers learn about Android app vulnerabilities. In this paper, we describe Ghera, an open source repository of benchmarks that capture 25 known vulnerabilities in Android apps (as pairs of exploited/benign and exploiting/malicious apps). We also present desirable characteristics of vulnerability benchmarks and repositories that we uncovered while creating Ghera.
Evidence from web-based dietary search patterns to the role of B12 deficiency in chronic pain
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2017
Year: 2017

Profound vitamin B12 deficiency is a known cause of disease, but the role of low or intermediate levels of B12 in the development of neuropathy and other neuropsychiatric symptoms as well as the relationship of eating meat and B12 levels is unclear. Here we use food-related internet search patterns from a sample of 8.5 million US-based people as a proxy to B12 intake and correlate these searches with internet searches related to possible effects of B12 deficiency. Food-related search patterns are highly correlated with known consumption and food-related searches (Spearman 0.69). Awareness of B12 deficiency was associated with a higher consumption of B12-rich foods and with queries for B12 supplements. Searches for terms related to neurological disorders were correlated with searches for B12-poor foods, in contrast with control terms. Popular medicines, those having fewer indications, and those which are predominantly used to treat pain are more strongly correlated with the ability to predict neuropathic pain queries using the B12 contents of food. Our findings provide evidence for the utility of using Internet search patterns to investigate health questions in large populations and suggest that low B12 intake may be associated with a broader spectrum of neurological disorders than currently appreciated.
Prune the Convolutional Neural Networks with Sparse Shrink
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2017
Year: 2017

Nowadays, it is still difficult to adapt Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based models for deployment on embedded devices. The heavy computation and large memory footprint of CNN models become the main burden in real application. In this paper, we propose a "Sparse Shrink" algorithm to prune an existing CNN model. By analyzing the importance of each channel via sparse reconstruction, the algorithm is able to prune redundant feature maps accordingly. The resulting pruned model thus directly saves computational resource. We have evaluated our algorithm on CIFAR-100. As shown in our experiments, we can reduce 56.77% parameters and 73.84% multiplication in total with only minor decrease in accuracy. These results have demonstrated the effectiveness of our "Sparse Shrink" algorithm.
Covert Communication with Channel-State Information at the Transmitter
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

We consider the problem of covert communication over a state-dependent channel, where the transmitter has causal or noncausal knowledge of the channel states. Here, "covert" means that a warden on the channel should observe similar statistics when the transmitter is sending a message and when it is not. When a sufficiently long secret key is shared between the transmitter and the receiver, we derive closed-form formulas for the maximum achievable covert communication rate ("covert capacity") for discrete memoryless channels and, when the transmitter's channel-state information (CSI) is noncausal, for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. For certain channel models, including the AWGN channel, we show that the covert capacity is positive with CSI at the transmitter, but is zero without CSI. We also derive lower bounds on the rate of the secret key that is needed for the transmitter and the receiver to achieve the covert capacity.
On-Stack Replacement à la Carte
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2017
Year: 2017

On-stack replacement (OSR) dynamically transfers execution between different code versions. This mechanism is used in mainstream runtime systems to support adaptive and speculative optimizations by running code tailored to provide the best expected performance for the actual workload. Current approaches either restrict the program points where OSR can be fired or require complex optimization-specific operations to realign the program's state during a transition. The engineering effort to implement OSR and the lack of abstractions make it rarely accessible to the research community, leaving fundamental question regarding its flexibility largely unexplored. In this article we make a first step towards a provably sound abstract framework for OSR. We show that compiler optimizations can be made OSR-aware in isolation, and then safely composed. We identify a class of transformations, which we call live-variable equivalent (LVE), that captures a natural property of fundamental compiler optimizations, and devise an algorithm to automatically generate the OSR machinery required for an LVE transition at arbitrary program locations. We present an implementation of our ideas in LLVM and evaluate it against prominent benchmarks, showing that bidirectional OSR transitions are possible almost everywhere in the code in the presence of common, unhindered global optimizations. We then discuss the end-to-end utility of our techniques in source-level debugging of optimized code, showing how our algorithms can provide novel building blocks for debuggers for both executables and managed runtimes.
Proving Expected Sensitivity of Probabilistic Programs
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2017
Year: 2017

Program sensitivity, also known as Lipschitz continuity, describes how small changes in a program's input lead to bounded changes in the output. We propose an average notion of program sensitivity for probabilistic programs---expected sensitivity---that averages a distance function over a probabilistic coupling of two output distributions from two similar inputs. By varying the distance, expected sensitivity recovers useful notions of probabilistic function sensitivity, including stability of machine learning algorithms and convergence of Markov chains. Furthermore, expected sensitivity satisfies clean compositional properties and is amenable to formal verification. We develop a relational program logic called $\mathbb{E}$pRHL for proving expected sensitivity properties. Our logic features two key ideas. First, relational pre-conditions and post-conditions are expressed using distances, a real-valued generalization of typical boolean-valued (relational) assertions. Second, judgments are interpreted in terms of expectation coupling, a novel, quantitative generalization of probabilistic couplings which supports compositional reasoning. We demonstrate our logic on examples beyond the reach of prior relational logics. Our main example formalizes uniform stability of the stochastic gradient method. Furthermore, we prove rapid mixing for a probabilistic model of population dynamics. We also extend our logic with a transitivity principle for expectation couplings to capture the path coupling proof technique by Bubley and Dyer, and formalize rapid mixing of the Glauber dynamics from statistical physics.