OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
ICTD for Healthcare in Ghana: Two Parallel Case Studies
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2009
Year: 2009

This paper examines two parallel case studies to promote remote medical consultation in Ghana. These projects, initiated independently by different researchers in different organizations, both deployed ICT solutions in the same medical community in the same year. The Ghana Consultation Network currently has over 125 users running a Web-based application over a delay-tolerant network of servers. OneTouch MedicareLine is currently providing 1700 doctors in Ghana with free mobile phone calls and text messages to other members of the medical community. We present the consequences of (1) the institutional context and identity of the investigators, as well as specific decisions made with respect to (2) partnerships formed, (3) perceptions of technological infrastructure, and (4) high-level design decisions. In concluding, we discuss lessons learned and high-level implications for future ICTD research agendas.
Tandem Coding and Cryptography on Wiretap Channels: EXIT Chart Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

Traditional cryptography assumes an eavesdropper receives an error-free copy of the transmitted ciphertext. Wyner's wiretap channel model recognizes that at the physical layer both the intended receiver and the passive eavesdropper inevitably receive an error-prone version of the transmitted message which must be corrected prior to decryption. This paper considers the implications of using both channel and cryptographic codes under the wiretap channel model in a way that enhances the \emph{information-theoretic} security for the friendly parties by keeping the information transfer to the eavesdropper small. We consider a secret-key cryptographic system with a linear feedback shift register (LFSR)-based keystream generator and observe the mutual information between an LFSR-generated sequence and the received noise-corrupted ciphertext sequence under a known-plaintext scenario. The effectiveness of a noniterative fast correlation attack, which reduces the search time in a brute-force attack, is shown to be correlated with this mutual information. For an iterative fast correlation attack on this cryptographic system, it is shown that an EXIT chart and mutual information are very good predictors of decoding success and failure by a passive eavesdropper.
Extended Bulgarian keyboard layouts
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2009
Year: 2009

The old Bulgarian keyboard standard BDS 5237-78 was developed for use mostly on typewriter machines. The wide distribution of the computers forced the update of this standard. On one hand this is because of the need to support symbols such as the Bulgarian quotation marks, the Cyrillic letter I with grave accent, the long dash, etc. On the other hand the so called "phonetic layout" became popular and this layout is not standartized by BDS. In this work we are analyzing the possibilities to improve the keyboard layout according to BDS 5237-78, as well as the traditional phonetic layout. At the same time we are making a comparison with the new proposed Bulgarian keyboard layout standard BDS 5237:2006. We are proposing an algorithm for placement of additional symbols on the keys of the keyboard in a way that makes easy for the users to find the symbols even when they are not inscripted on the keys. We are giving formal definitions and illustrations of four keyboard layouts - three extended keyboard layouts for typing in "Cyrillic" mode (BDS, traditional phonetic and phonetic according to the new proposed BDS 5237:2006) and one extended layout for typing in "Latin" mode.
A FORTRAN coded regular expression Compiler for IBM 1130 Computing System
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2009
Year: 2009

REC (Regular Expression Compiler) is a concise programming language which allows students to write programs without knowledge of the complicated syntax of languages like FORTRAN and ALGOL. The language is recursive and contains only four elements for control. This paper describes an interpreter of REC written in FORTRAN.
Solving the 0-1 Multidimensional Knapsack Problem with Resolution Search
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2009
Year: 2009

We propose an exact method which combines the resolution search and branch & bound algorithms for solving the 0?1 Multidimensional Knapsack Problem. This algorithm is able to prove large?scale strong correlated instances. The optimal values of the 10 constraint, 500 variable instances of the OR-Library are exposed. These values were previously unknown.
Descriptional complexity of bounded context-free languages
Venue: arXiv cs.FL 2009
Year: 2009

Finite-turn pushdown automata (PDA) are investigated concerning their descriptional complexity. It is known that they accept exactly the class of ultralinear context-free languages. Furthermore, the increase in size when converting arbitrary PDAs accepting ultralinear languages to finite-turn PDAs cannot be bounded by any recursive function. The latter phenomenon is known as non-recursive trade-off. In this paper, finite-turn PDAs accepting bounded languages are considered. First, letter-bounded languages are studied. We prove that in this case the non-recursive trade-off is reduced to a recursive trade-off, more precisely, to an exponential trade-off. A conversion algorithm is presented and the optimality of the construction is shown by proving tight lower bounds. Furthermore, the question of reducing the number of turns of a given finite-turn PDA is studied. Again, a conversion algorithm is provided which shows that in this case the trade-off is at most polynomial. Finally, the more general case of word-bounded languages is investigated. We show how the results obtained for letter-bounded languages can be extended to word-bounded languages.
Nondeterministic one-tape off-line Turing machines and their time complexity
Venue: arXiv cs.FL 2009
Year: 2009

In this paper we consider the time and the crossing sequence complexities of one-tape off-line Turing machines. We show that the running time of each nondeterministic machine accepting a nonregular language must grow at least as n\log n, in the case all accepting computations are considered (accept measure). We also prove that the maximal length of the crossing sequences used in accepting computations must grow at least as \log n. On the other hand, it is known that if the time is measured considering, for each accepted string, only the faster accepting computation (weak measure), then there exist nonregular languages accepted in linear time. We prove that under this measure, each accepting computation should exhibit a crossing sequence of length at least \log\log n. We also present efficient implementations of algorithms accepting some unary nonregular languages.
An Efficient Dynamic and Distributed RSA Accumulator
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2009
Year: 2009

We show how to use the RSA one-way accumulator to realize an efficient and dynamic authenticated dictionary, where untrusted directories provide cryptographically verifiable answers to membership queries on a set maintained by a trusted source. Our accumulator-based scheme for authenticated dictionaries supports efficient incremental updates of the underlying set by insertions and deletions of elements. Also, the user can optimally verify in constant time the authenticity of the answer provided by a directory with a simple and practical algorithm. We have also implemented this scheme and we give empirical results that can be used to determine the best strategy for systems implementation with respect to resources that are available. This work has applications to certificate revocation in public key infrastructure and end-to-end integrity of data collections published by third parties on the Internet.
On the Separability of Parallel Gaussian Interference Channels
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

The separability in parallel Gaussian interference channels (PGICs) is studied in this paper. We generalize the separability results in one-sided PGICs (OPGICs) by Sung \emph{et al.} to two-sided PGICs (TPGICs). Specifically, for strong and mixed TPGICs, we show necessary and sufficient conditions for the separability. For this, we show diagonal covariance matrices are sum-rate optimal for strong and mixed TPGICs.
Acquisition of morphological families and derivational series from a machine readable dictionary
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2009
Year: 2009

The paper presents a linguistic and computational model aiming at making the morphological structure of the lexicon emerge from the formal and semantic regularities of the words it contains. The model is word-based. The proposed morphological structure consists of (1) binary relations that connect each headword with words that are morphologically related, and especially with the members of its morphological family and its derivational series, and of (2) the analogies that hold between the words. The model has been tested on the lexicon of French using the TLFi machine readable dictionary.
Feedback loops of attention in peer production
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2009
Year: 2009

A significant percentage of online content is now published and consumed via the mechanism of crowdsourcing. While any user can contribute to these forums, a disproportionately large percentage of the content is submitted by very active and devoted users, whose continuing participation is key to the sites' success. As we show, people's propensity to keep participating increases the more they contribute, suggesting motivating factors which increase over time. This paper demonstrates that submitters who stop receiving attention tend to stop contributing, while prolific contributors attract an ever increasing number of followers and their attention in a feedback loop. We demonstrate that this mechanism leads to the observed power law in the number of contributions per user and support our assertions by an analysis of hundreds of millions of contributions to top content sharing websites Digg.com and Youtube.com.
Capacity of a Class of Symmetric SIMO Gaussian Interference Channels within O(1)
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

The N+1 user, 1 x N single input multiple output (SIMO) Gaussian interference channel where each transmitter has a single antenna and each receiver has N antennas is studied. The symmetric capacity within O(1) is characterized for the symmetric case where all direct links have the same signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and all undesired links have the same interference-to-noise ratio (INR). The gap to the exact capacity is a constant which is independent of SNR and INR. To get this result, we first generalize the deterministic interference channel introduced by El Gamal and Costa to model interference channels with multiple antennas. We derive the capacity region of this deterministic interference channel. Based on the insights provided by the deterministic channel, we characterize the generalized degrees of freedom (GDOF) of Gaussian case, which directly leads to the O(1) capacity approximation. On the achievability side, an interesting conclusion is that the generalized degrees of freedom (GDOF) regime where treating interference as noise is found to be optimal in the 2 user interference channel, does not appear in the N+1 user, 1 x N SIMO case. On the converse side, new multi-user outer bounds emerge out of this work that do not follow directly from the 2 user case. In addition to the GDOF region, the outer bounds identify a strong interference regime where the capacity region is established.
Experiment Study of Entropy Convergence of Ant Colony Optimization
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2009
Year: 2009

Ant colony optimization (ACO) has been applied to the field of combinatorial optimization widely. But the study of convergence theory of ACO is rare under general condition. In this paper, the authors try to find the evidence to prove that entropy is related to the convergence of ACO, especially to the estimation of the minimum iteration number of convergence. Entropy is a new view point possibly to studying the ACO convergence under general condition. Key Words: Ant Colony Optimization, Convergence of ACO, Entropy
On Models of Multi-user Gaussian Channels with Fading
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

An analytically tractable model for Gaussian multiuser channels with fading is studied, and the capacity region of this model is found to be a good approximation of the capacity region of the original Gaussian network. This work extends the existing body of work on deterministic models for Gaussian multiuser channels to include the physical phenomenon of fading. In particular, it generalizes these results to a unicast, multiple node network setting with fading.
Quantum Algorithms of Bio-molecular Solutions for the Clique Problem on a Quantum Computer
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2009
Year: 2009

In this paper, it is demonstrated that the DNA-based algorithm [Ho et al. 2005] for solving an instance of the clique problem to any a graph G = (V, E) with n vertices and p edges and its complementary graph G1 = (V, E1) with n vertices and m = (((n*(n-1))/2)-p) edges can be implemented by Hadamard gates, NOT gates, CNOT gates, CCNOT gates, Grover's operators, and quantum measurements on a quantum computer. It is also demonstrated that if Grovers algorithm is employed to accomplish the readout step in the DNA-based algorithm, the quantum implementation of the DNA-based algorithm is equivalent to the oracle work (in the language of Grover's algorithm), that is, the target state labeling preceding Grover,s searching steps. It is shown that one oracle work can be completed with O((2 * n) * (n + 1) * (n + 2) / 3) NOT gates, one CNOT gate and O((4 * m) + (((2 * n) * (n + 1) * (n + 14)) / 6)) CCNOT gates. This is to say that for the quantum implementation of the DNA-based algorithm [Ho et al. 2005] a faster labeling of the target state is attained, which also implies a speedy solution to an instance of the clique problem.
Combining Supervised and Unsupervised Learning for GIS Classification
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2009
Year: 2009

This paper presents a new hybrid learning algorithm for unsupervised classification tasks. We combined Fuzzy c-means learning algorithm and a supervised version of Minimerror to develop a hybrid incremental strategy allowing unsupervised classifications. We applied this new approach to a real-world database in order to know if the information contained in unlabeled features of a Geographic Information System (GIS), allows to well classify it. Finally, we compared our results to a classical supervised classification obtained by a multilayer perceptron.
A Language-theoretic View on Guidelines and Consistency Rules of UML
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2009
Year: 2009

Guidelines and consistency rules of UML are used to control the degrees of freedom provided by the language to prevent faults. Guidelines are used in specific domains (e.g., avionics) to recommend the proper use of technologies. Consistency rules are used to deal with inconsistencies in models. However, guidelines and consistency rules use informal restrictions on the uses of languages, which makes checking difficult. In this paper, we consider these problems from a language-theoretic view. We propose the formalism of C-Systems, short for "formal language control systems". A C-System consists of a controlled grammar and a controlling grammar. Guidelines and consistency rules are formalized as controlling grammars that control the uses of UML, i.e. the derivations using the grammar of UML. This approach can be implemented as a parser, which can automatically verify the rules on a UML user model in XMI format. A comparison to related work shows our contribution: a generic top-down and syntax-based approach that checks language level constraints at compile-time.
The Diversity Multiplexing Tradeoff for Interference Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

The diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) for interference networks, such as the interference channel, the X channel, the Z interference channel and the Z channel, is analyzed. In particular, we investigate the impact of rate-splitting and channel knowledge at the transmitters. We also use the DMT of the Z channel and the Z interference channel to distill insights into the "loud neighbor" problem for femto-cell networks.
On Design and Implementation of the Distributed Modular Audio Recognition Framework: Requirements and Specification Design Document
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2009
Year: 2009

We present the requirements and design specification of the open-source Distributed Modular Audio Recognition Framework (DMARF), a distributed extension of MARF. The distributed version aggregates a number of distributed technologies (e.g. Java RMI, CORBA, Web Services) in a pluggable and modular model along with the provision of advanced distributed systems algorithms. We outline the associated challenges incurred during the design and implementation as well as overall specification of the project and its advantages and limitations.
Macrodynamics of users' behavior in Information Retrieval
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2009
Year: 2009

We present a method to geometrize massive data sets from search engines query logs. For this purpose, a macrodynamic-like quantitative model of the Information Retrieval (IR) process is developed, whose paradigm is inspired by basic constructions of Einstein's general relativity theory in which all IR objects are uniformly placed in a common Room. The Room has a structure similar to Einsteinian spacetime, namely that of a smooth manifold. Documents and queries are treated as matter objects and sources of material fields. Relevance, the central notion of IR, becomes a dynamical issue controlled by both gravitation (or, more precisely, as the motion in a curved spacetime) and forces originating from the interactions of matter fields. The spatio-temporal description ascribes dynamics to any document or query, thus providing a uniform description for documents of both initially static and dynamical nature. Within the IR context, the techniques presented are based on two ideas. The first is the placement of all objects participating in IR into a common continuous space. The second idea is the `objectivization' of the IR process; instead of expressing users' wishes, we consider the overall IR as an objective physical process, representing the IR process in terms of motion in a given external-fields configuration. Various semantic environments are treated as various IR universes.
Information Diffusion in Computer Science Citation Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.DL 2009
Year: 2009

The paper citation network is a traditional social medium for the exchange of ideas and knowledge. In this paper we view citation networks from the perspective of information diffusion. We study the structural features of the information paths through the citation networks of publications in computer science, and analyze the impact of various citation choices on the subsequent impact of the article. We find that citing recent papers and papers within the same scholarly community garners a slightly larger number of citations on average. However, this correlation is weaker among well-cited papers implying that for high impact work citing within one's field is of lesser importance. We also study differences in information flow for specific subsets of citation networks: books versus conference and journal articles, different areas of computer science, and different time periods.
On the Benefits of Bandwidth Limiting in Decentralized Vector Multiple Access Channels
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

We study the network spectral efficiency of decentralized vector multiple access channels (MACs) when the number of accessible dimensions per transmitter is strategically limited. Considering each dimension as a frequency band, we call this limiting process bandwidth limiting (BL). Assuming that each transmitter maximizes its own data rate by water-filling over the available frequency bands, we consider two scenarios. In the first scenario, transmitters use non-intersecting sets of bands (spectral resource partition), and in the second one, they freely exploit all the available frequency bands (spectral resource sharing). In the latter case, successive interference cancelation (SIC) is used. We show the existence of an optimal number of dimensions that a transmitter must use in order to maximize the network performance measured in terms of spectral efficiency. We provide a closed form expression for the optimal number of accessible bands in the first scenario. Such an optimum point, depends on the number of active transmitters, the number of available frequency bands and the different signal-to-noise ratios. In the second scenario, we show that BL does not bring a significant improvement on the network spectral efficiency, when all transmitters use the same BL policy. For both scenarios, we provide simulation results to validate our conclusions.
Do not Choose Representation just Change: An Experimental Study in States based EA
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2009
Year: 2009

Our aim in this paper is to analyse the phenotypic effects (evolvability) of diverse coding conversion operators in an instance of the states based evolutionary algorithm (SEA). Since the representation of solutions or the selection of the best encoding during the optimization process has been proved to be very important for the efficiency of evolutionary algorithms (EAs), we will discuss a strategy of coupling more than one representation and different procedures of conversion from one coding to another during the search. Elsewhere, some EAs try to use multiple representations (SM-GA, SEA, etc.) in intention to benefit from the characteristics of each of them. In spite of those results, this paper shows that the change of the representation is also a crucial approach to take into consideration while attempting to increase the performances of such EAs. As a demonstrative example, we use a two states SEA (2-SEA) which has two identical search spaces but different coding conversion operators. The results show that the way of changing from one coding to another and not only the choice of the best representation nor the representation itself is very advantageous and must be taken into account in order to well-desing and improve EAs execution.
Succinct Representation of Codes with Applications to Testing
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2009
Year: 2009

Motivated by questions in property testing, we search for linear error-correcting codes that have the "single local orbit" property: i.e., they are specified by a single local constraint and its translations under the symmetry group of the code. We show that the dual of every "sparse" binary code whose coordinates are indexed by elements of F_{2^n} for prime n, and whose symmetry group includes the group of non-singular affine transformations of F_{2^n} has the single local orbit property. (A code is said to be "sparse" if it contains polynomially many codewords in its block length.) In particular this class includes the dual-BCH codes for whose duals (i.e., for BCH codes) simple bases were not known. Our result gives the first short (O(n)-bit, as opposed to the natural exp(n)-bit) description of a low-weight basis for BCH codes. The interest in the "single local orbit" property comes from the recent result of Kaufman and Sudan (STOC 2008) that shows that the duals of codes that have the single local orbit property under the affine symmetry group are locally testable. When combined with our main result, this shows that all sparse affine-invariant codes over the coordinates F_{2^n} for prime n are locally testable. If, in addition to n being prime, if 2^n-1 is also prime (i.e., 2^n-1 is a Mersenne prime), then we get that every sparse cyclic code also has the single local orbit. In particular this implies that BCH codes of Mersenne prime length are generated by a single low-weight codeword and its cyclic shifts.
On the Complexity of Deciding Degeneracy in Games
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2009
Year: 2009

We show that it is NP-Complete to decide whether a bimatrix game is degenerate and it is Co-NP-Complete to decide whether a bimatrix game is nondegenerate.