OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
A Novel No-reference Video Quality Metric for Evaluating Temporal Jerkiness due to Frame Freezing
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2014
Year: 2014

In this work, we propose a novel no-reference (NR) video quality metric that evaluates the impact of frame freezing due to either packet loss or late arrival. Our metric uses a trained neural network acting on features that are chosen to capture the impact of frame freezing on the perceived quality. The considered features include the number of freezes, freeze duration statistics, inter-freeze distance statistics, frame difference before and after the freeze, normal frame difference, and the ratio of them. We use the neural network to find the mapping between features and subjective test scores. We optimize the network structure and the feature selection through a cross validation procedure, using training samples extracted from both VQEG and LIVE video databases. The resulting feature set and network structure yields accurate quality prediction for both the training data containing 54 test videos and a separate testing dataset including 14 videos, with Pearson Correlation Coefficients greater than 0.9 and 0.8 for the training set and the testing set, respectively. Our proposed metric has low complexity and could be utilized in a system with realtime processing constraint.
Reverse Engineering of Middleware for Verification of Robot Control Architectures
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2014
Year: 2014

We consider the problem of automating the verification of distributed control software relying on publish-subscribe middleware. In this scenario, the main challenge is that software correctness depends intrinsically on correct usage of middleware components, but structured models of such components might not be available for analysis, e.g., because they are too large and complex to be described precisely in a cost-effective way. To overcome this problem, we propose to identify abstract models of middleware as finite-state automata, and then to perform verification on the combined middleware and control software models. Both steps are carried out in a computer-assisted way using state-of-the-art techniques in automata-based identification and verification. Our main contribution is to show that the combination of identification and verification is feasible and useful when considering typical issues that arise in the implementation of distributed control software.
State of the Art of Agile Governance: A Systematic Review
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2014
Year: 2014

Context: Agility at the business level requires Information Technology (IT) environment flexible and customizable, as well as effective and responsive governance in order to deliver value faster, better, and cheaper to the business. Objective: To understand better this context, our paper seeks to investigate how the domain of agile governance has evolved, as well as to derive implications for research and practice. Method: We conducted a systematic review about the state of art of the agile governance up to and including 2013. Our search strategy identified 1992 studies in 10 databases, of which 167 had the potential to answer our research questions. Results: We organized the studies into four major groups: software engineering, enterprise, manufacturing and multidisciplinary; classifying them into 16 emerging categories. As a result, the review provides a convergent definition for agile governance, six meta- principles, and a map of findings organized by topic and classified by relevance and convergence. Conclusion: The found evidence lead us to believe that agile governance is a relatively new, wide and multidisciplinary area focused on organizational performance and competitiveness that needs to be more intensively studied. Finally, we made improvements and additions to the methodological approach for systematic reviews and qualitative studies.
A Provenance-Policy Based Access Control Model For Data Usage Validation In Cloud
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

In an organization specifically as virtual as cloud there is need for access control systems to constrain users direct or backhanded action that could lead to breach of security. In cloud, apart from owner access to confidential data the third party auditing and accounting is done which could stir up further data leaks. To control such data leaks and integrity, in past several security policies based on role, identity and user attributes were proposed and found ineffective since they depend on static policies which do not monitor data access and its origin. Provenance on the other hand tracks data usage and its origin which proves the authenticity of data. To employ provenance in a real time system like cloud, the service provider needs to store metadata on the subject of data alteration which is universally called as the Provenance Information. This paper presents a provenance-policy based access control model which is designed and integrated with the system that not only makes data auditable but also incorporates accountability for data alteration events.
Towards an Isomorphism Dichotomy for Hereditary Graph Classes
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper we resolve the complexity of the isomorphism problem on all but finitely many of the graph classes characterized by two forbidden induced subgraphs. To this end we develop new techniques applicable for the structural and algorithmic analysis of graphs. First, we develop a methodology to show isomorphism completeness of the isomorphism problem on graph classes by providing a general framework unifying various reduction techniques. Second, we generalize the concept of the modular decomposition to colored graphs, allowing for non-standard decompositions. We show that, given a suitable decomposition functor, the graph isomorphism problem reduces to checking isomorphism of colored prime graphs. Third, we extend the techniques of bounded color valence and hypergraph isomorphism on hypergraphs of bounded color size as follows. We say a colored graph has generalized color valence at most k if, after removing all vertices in color classes of size at most k, for each color class C every vertex has at most k neighbors in C or at most k non-neighbors in C. We show that isomorphism of graphs of bounded generalized color valence can be solved in polynomial time.
Dimensioning of PA for massive MIMO system with load adaptive number of antennas
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2014
Year: 2014

This paper takes into consideration the non-ideal efficiency characteristics of realistic power amplifiers (PAs) along with the daily traffic profile in order to investigate the impact of PA dimensioning on the energy efficiency (EE) of load adaptive massive MIMO system. A multicellular system has been considered where each base station (BS) is equipped with a large number of antennas to serve many single antenna users. For a given number of users in a cell, the optimum number of active antennas maximizing EE has been derived where total BS downlink power is assumed to be fixed. Under the same assumption, the PAs have been dimensioned in a way that maximizes network EE not only for a single time snapshot but over twenty four hours of operation while considering dynamic efficiency characteristics of the PAs. In order to incorporate this daily load profile, each BS has been modeled as an M/G/m/m state dependent queue under the assumption that the network is dimensioned to serve a maximum number of users at a time corresponding to 100% cell traffic load. This load adaptive system along with the optimized PA dimensioning achieves 30% higher energy efficiency compared to a base line system where the BSs always run with a fixed number of active antennas which are most energy efficient while serving 100% traffic load.
Azhary: An Arabic Lexical Ontology
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2014
Year: 2014

Arabic language is the most spoken languages in the Semitic languages group, and one of the most common languages in the world spoken by more than 422 million. It is also of paramount importance to Muslims, it is a sacred language of the Islamic Holly Book (Quran) and prayer (and other acts of worship) in Islam is performed only by mastering some of Arabic words. Arabic is also a major ritual language of a number of Christian churches in the Arab world and it is also used in writing several intellectual and religious Jewish books in the Middle Ages. Despite this, there is no semantic Arabic lexicon which researchers can depend on. In this paper we introduce Azhary as a lexical ontology for the Arabic language. It groups Arabic words into sets of synonyms called synsets, and records a number of relationships between words such as synonym, antonym, hypernym, hyponym, meronym, holonym and association relations. The ontology contains 26,195 words organized in 13,328 synsets. It has been developed and contrasted against AWN which is the most common available Arabic lexical ontology.
Identifying User Behavior from Residual Data in Cloud-based Synchronized Apps
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

As the distinction between personal and organizational device usage continues to blur, the combination of applications that interact increases the need to investigate potential security issues. Although security and forensic researchers have been able to recover a variety of artifacts, empirical research has not examined a suite of application artifacts from the perspective of high-level pattern identification. This research presents a preliminary investigation into the idea that residual artifacts generated by cloud-based synchronized applications can be used to identify broad user behavior patterns. To accomplish this, the researchers conducted a single-case, pretest-posttest, quasi experiment using a smartphone device and a suite of Google mobile applications. The contribution of this paper is two-fold. First, it provides a proof of concept of the extent to which residual data from cloud-based synchronized applications can be used to broadly identify user behavior patterns from device data patterns. Second, it highlights the need for security controls to prevent and manage information flow between BYOD mobile devices and cloud synchronization services. Keywords: Residual Data, Cloud, Apps, Digital Forensics, BYOD
Accelerated Runtime Verification of LTL Specifications with Counting Semantics
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2014
Year: 2014

Runtime verification is an effective automated method for specification-based offline testing and analysis as well as online monitoring of complex systems. The specification language is often a variant of regular expressions or a popular temporal logic, such as LTL. This paper presents a novel and efficient parallel algorithm for verifying a more expressive version of LTL specifications that incorporates counting semantics, where nested quantifiers can be subject to numerical constraints. Such constraints are useful in evaluating thresholds (e.g., expected uptime of a web server). The significance of this extension is that it enables us to reason about the correctness of a large class of systems, such as web servers, OS kernels, and network behavior, where properties are required to be instantiated for parameterized requests, kernel objects, network nodes, etc. Our algorithm uses the popular {\em MapReduce} architecture to split a program trace into variable-based clusters at run time. Each cluster is then mapped to its respective monitor instances, verified, and reduced collectively on a multi-core CPU or the GPU. Our algorithm is fully implemented and we report very encouraging experimental results, where the monitoring overhead is negligible on real-world data sets.
Zero-Aliasing Correlation Filters for Object Recognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

Correlation filters (CFs) are a class of classifiers that are attractive for object localization and tracking applications. Traditionally, CFs have been designed in the frequency domain using the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), where correlation is efficiently implemented. However, existing CF designs do not account for the fact that the multiplication of two DFTs in the frequency domain corresponds to a circular correlation in the time/spatial domain. Because this was previously unaccounted for, prior CF designs are not truly optimal, as their optimization criteria do not accurately quantify their optimization intention. In this paper, we introduce new zero-aliasing constraints that completely eliminate this aliasing problem by ensuring that the optimization criterion for a given CF corresponds to a linear correlation rather than a circular correlation. This means that previous CF designs can be significantly improved by this reformulation. We demonstrate the benefits of this new CF design approach with several important CFs. We present experimental results on diverse data sets and present solutions to the computational challenges associated with computing these CFs. Code for the CFs described in this paper and their respective zero-aliasing versions is available at http://vishnu.boddeti.net/projects/correlation-filters.html
An Improved Tracking using IMU and Vision Fusion for Mobile Augmented Reality Applications
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) is becoming an important cyber-physical system application given the ubiquitous availability of mobile phones. With the need to operate in unprepared environments, accurate and robust registration and tracking has become an important research problem to solve. In fact, when MAR is used for tele-interactive applications involving large distances, say from an accident site to insurance office, tracking at both the ends is desirable and further it is essential to appropriately fuse inertial and vision sensors data. In this paper, we present results and discuss some insights gained in marker-less tracking during the development of a prototype pertaining to an example use case related to breakdown or damage assessment of a vehicle. The novelty of this paper is in bringing together different components and modules with appropriate enhancements towards a complete working system.
A Formal Approach to Distributed System Security Test Generation
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

Deployment of distributed systems sets high requirements for procedures for the security testing of these systems. This work introduces: (1) a list of typical threats based on standards and actual practices; (2) an extended six-layered model for test generation mission on the basis of technical specifications and end-user requirements. Based on the list of typical threats and the multilayer model, we describe a formal approach to the automated design and generation of security mechanisms checklists for complex distributed systems.
Automata Describing Object Behavior
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2014
Year: 2014

Relating formal re nement techniques with commercial object oriented software development methods is important to achieve enhancement of the power and exibility of these software development methods and tools. We will present an automata model together with a denotational and an operational semantics to describe the behavior of objects. Based on the given semantics we de ne a set of powerful re nement rules and discuss their applicability in software engineering practice especially with the use of inheritance.
Hybrid Ant Colony Algorithm Clonal Selection in the Application of the Cloud's Resource Scheduling
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, thinking over characteristics of ant colony optimization Algorithm, taking into account the characteristics of cloud computing, combined with clonal selection algorithm (CSA) global optimum advantage of the convergence of the clonal selection algorithm (CSA) into every ACO iteration, speeding up the convergence rate, and the introduction of reverse mutation strategy, ant colony optimization algorithm avoids local optimum. Depth study of the cloud environment ant colony clonal selection algorithm resource scheduling policy, clonal selection algorithm converges to solve optimization problems when sufficient condition for global optimal solution based on clonal selection algorithm for various applications such as BCA and CLONALG algorithm, using these sufficient condition to meet and simulation platform CloudSim achieve a simulation by extending the cloud. Experimental results show that this task can be shortened fusion algorithm running time cloud environment, improve resource utilization. Demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.
Inferring User Preferences by Probabilistic Logical Reasoning over Social Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2014
Year: 2014

We propose a framework for inferring the latent attitudes or preferences of users by performing probabilistic first-order logical reasoning over the social network graph. Our method answers questions about Twitter users like {\em Does this user like sushi?} or {\em Is this user a New York Knicks fan?} by building a probabilistic model that reasons over user attributes (the user's location or gender) and the social network (the user's friends and spouse), via inferences like homophily (I am more likely to like sushi if spouse or friends like sushi, I am more likely to like the Knicks if I live in New York). The algorithm uses distant supervision, semi-supervised data harvesting and vector space models to extract user attributes (e.g. spouse, education, location) and preferences (likes and dislikes) from text. The extracted propositions are then fed into a probabilistic reasoner (we investigate both Markov Logic and Probabilistic Soft Logic). Our experiments show that probabilistic logical reasoning significantly improves the performance on attribute and relation extraction, and also achieves an F-score of 0.791 at predicting a users likes or dislikes, significantly better than two strong baselines.
Variable-Order de Bruijn Graphs
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2014
Year: 2014

The de Bruijn graph $G_K$ of a set of strings $S$ is a key data structure in genome assembly that represents overlaps between all the $K$-length substrings of $S$. Construction and navigation of the graph is a space and time bottleneck in practice and the main hurdle for assembling large, eukaryote genomes. This problem is compounded by the fact that state-of-the-art assemblers do not build the de Bruijn graph for a single order (value of $K$) but for multiple values of $K$. More precisely, they build $d$ de Bruijn graphs, each with a specific order, i.e., $G_{K_1}, G_{K_2}, ..., G_{K_d}$. Although, this paradigm increases the quality of the assembly produced, it increases the memory by a factor of $d$ in most cases. In this paper, we show how to augment a succinct de Bruijn graph representation by Bowe et al. (Proc. WABI, 2012) to support new operations that let us change order on the fly, effectively representing all de Bruijn graphs of order up to some maximum $K$ in a single data structure. Our experiments show our variable-order de Bruijn graph only modestly increases space usage, construction time, and navigation time compared to a single order graph.
Exploiting Parallelism for Hard Problems in Abstract Argumentation: Technical Report
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2014
Year: 2014

Abstract argumentation framework (\AFname) is a unifying framework able to encompass a variety of nonmonotonic reasoning approaches, logic programming and computational argumentation. Yet, efficient approaches for most of the decision and enumeration problems associated to \AFname s are missing, thus potentially limiting the efficacy of argumentation-based approaches in real domains. In this paper, we present an algorithm for enumerating the preferred extensions of abstract argumentation frameworks which exploits parallel computation. To this purpose, the SCC-recursive semantics definition schema is adopted, where extensions are defined at the level of specific sub-frameworks. The algorithm shows significant performance improvements in large frameworks, in terms of number of solutions found and speedup.
Turn Down that Noise: Synaptic Encoding of Afferent SNR in a Single Spiking Neuron
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

We have added a simplified neuromorphic model of Spike Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP) to the Synapto-dendritic Kernel Adapting Neuron (SKAN). The resulting neuron model is the first to show synaptic encoding of afferent signal to noise ratio in addition to the unsupervised learning of spatio temporal spike patterns. The neuron model is particularly suitable for implementation in digital neuromorphic hardware as it does not use any complex mathematical operations and uses a novel approach to achieve synaptic homeostasis. The neurons noise compensation properties are characterized and tested on noise corrupted zeros digits of the MNIST handwritten dataset. Results show the simultaneously learning common patterns in its input data while dynamically weighing individual afferent channels based on their signal to noise ratio. Despite its simplicity the interesting behaviors of the neuron model and the resulting computational power may offer insights into biological systems.
Accelerating the ANT Colony Optimization By Smart ANTs, Using Genetic Operator
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

This paper research review Ant colony optimization (ACO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), both are two powerful meta-heuristics. This paper explains some major defects of these two algorithm at first then proposes a new model for ACO in which, artificial ants use a quick genetic operator and accelerate their actions in selecting next state. Experimental results show that proposed hybrid algorithm is effective and its performance including speed and accuracy beats other version.
Computational Complexity of Functions
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2014
Year: 2014

Below is a translation from my Russian paper. I added references, unavailable to me in Moscow. Similar results have been also given in [Schnorr Stumpf 75] (see also [Lynch 75]). Earlier relevant work (classical theorems like Compression, Speed-up, etc.) was done in [Tseitin 56, Rabin 59, Hartmanis Stearns 65, Blum 67, Trakhtenbrot 67, Meyer Fischer 72]. I translated only the part with the statement of the results. Instead of the proof part I appended a later (1979, unpublished) proof sketch of a slightly tighter version. The improvement is based on the results of [Meyer Winklmann 78, Sipser 78]. Meyer and Winklmann extended earlier versions to machines with a separate input and working tape, thus allowing complexities smaller than the input length (down to its log). Sipser showed the space-bounded Halting Problem to require only additive constant overhead. The proof in the appendix below employs both advances to extend the original proofs to machines with a fixed alphabet and a separate input and working space. The extension has no (even logarithmic) restrictions on complexity and no overhead (beyond an additive constant). The sketch is very brief and a more detailed exposition is expected later: [Seiferas Meyer].
Scaled tree fractals do not strictly self-assemble
Venue: arXiv cs.CG 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we show that any scaled-up version of any discrete self-similar {\it tree} fractal does not strictly self-assemble, at any temperature, in Winfree's abstract Tile Assembly Model.
Enhanced Modulation Technique for Molecular Communication: OOMoSK
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

Molecular communication in nanonetworks is an emerging communication paradigm where molecules are used as information carriers. Concentration Shift Keying (CSK) and Molecule Shift Keying (MoSK) are being studied extensively for the short and medium range molecular nanonetworks. It is observed that MoSK outperforms CSK. However, MoSK requires different types of molecules for encoding which render transmitter and receiver complexities. We propose a modulation scheme called On-Off MoSK (OOMoSK) in which, molecules are released for information bit 1 and no molecule is released for 0. The proposed scheme enjoys reduced number of the types of molecules for encoding. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme enhances channel capacity and Symbol Error Rate (SER).