OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Planning Solar in Energy-managed Cellular Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2018
Year: 2018

There has been a lot of interest recently on the energy efficiency and environmental impact of wireless networks. Given that the base stations are the network elements that use most of this energy, much research has dealt with ways to reduce the energy used by the base stations by turning them off during periods of low load. In addition to this, installing a solar harvesting sys- tem composed of solar panels, batteries, charge con- trollers and inverters is another way to further reduce the network environmental impact and some research has been dealing with this for individual base stations. In this paper, we show that both techniques are tightly coupled. We propose a mathematical model that captures the synergy between solar installation over a network and the dynamic operation of energy-managed base stations. We study the interactions between the two methods for networks of hundreds of base stations and show that the order in which each method is intro- duced into the system does make a difference in terms of cost and performance. We also show that installing solar is not always the best solution even when the unit cost of the solar energy is smaller than the grid cost. We conclude that planning the solar installation and energy management of the base stations have to be done jointly.
Closeness of Solutions for Singularly Perturbed Systems via Averaging
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2018
Year: 2018

This paper studies the behavior of singularly perturbed nonlinear differential equations with boundary-layer solutions that do not necessarily converge to an equilibrium. Using the average of the fast variable and assuming the boundary layer solutions converge to a bounded set, results on the closeness of solutions of the singularly perturbed system to the solutions of the reduced average and boundary layer systems over a finite time interval are presented. The closeness of solutions error is shown to be of order O(\sqrt(ε)), where εis the perturbation parameter.
Secure Phrase Search for Intelligent Processing of Encrypted Data in Cloud-Based IoT
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

Phrase search allows retrieval of documents containing an exact phrase, which plays an important role in many machine learning applications for cloud-based IoT, such as intelligent medical data analytics. In order to protect sensitive information from being leaked by service providers, documents (e.g., clinic records) are usually encrypted by data owners before being outsourced to the cloud. This, however, makes the search operation an extremely challenging task. Existing searchable encryption schemes for multi-keyword search operations fail to perform phrase search, as they are unable to determine the location relationship of multiple keywords in a queried phrase over encrypted data on the cloud server side. In this paper, we propose P3, an efficient privacy-preserving phrase search scheme for intelligent encrypted data processing in cloud-based IoT. Our scheme exploits the homomorphic encryption and bilinear map to determine the location relationship of multiple queried keywords over encrypted data. It also utilizes a probabilistic trapdoor generation algorithm to protect users search patterns. Thorough security analysis demonstrates the security guarantees achieved by P3. We implement a prototype and conduct extensive experiments on real-world datasets. The evaluation results show that compared with existing multikeyword search schemes, P3 can greatly improve the search accuracy with moderate overheads.
Predicting the Programming Language of Questions and Snippets of StackOverflow Using Natural Language Processing
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2018
Year: 2018

Stack Overflow is the most popular Q&A website among software developers. As a platform for knowledge sharing and acquisition, the questions posted in Stack Overflow usually contain a code snippet. Stack Overflow relies on users to properly tag the programming language of a question and it simply assumes that the programming language of the snippets inside a question is the same as the tag of the question itself. In this paper, we propose a classifier to predict the programming language of questions posted in Stack Overflow using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML). The classifier achieves an accuracy of 91.1% in predicting the 24 most popular programming languages by combining features from the title, body and the code snippets of the question. We also propose a classifier that only uses the title and body of the question and has an accuracy of 81.1%. Finally, we propose a classifier of code snippets only that achieves an accuracy of 77.7%. These results show that deploying Machine Learning techniques on the combination of text and the code snippets of a question provides the best performance. These results demonstrate also that it is possible to identify the programming language of a snippet of few lines of source code. We visualize the feature space of two programming languages Java and SQL in order to identify some special properties of information inside the questions in Stack Overflow corresponding to these languages.
On Variational Methods for Motion Compensated Inpainting
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

We develop in this paper a generic Bayesian framework for the joint estimation of motion and recovery of missing data in a damaged video sequence. Using standard maximum a posteriori to variational formulation rationale, we derive generic minimum energy formulations for the estimation of a reconstructed sequence as well as motion recovery. We instantiate these energy formulations and from their Euler-Lagrange Equations, we propose a full multiresolution algorithms in order to compute good local minimizers for our energies and discuss their numerical implementations, focusing on the missing data recovery part, i.e. inpainting. Experimental results for synthetic as well as real sequences are presented. Image sequences and extra material is available at http://image.diku.dk/francois/seqinp.php.
Perfect match: Improved cross-modal embeddings for audio-visual synchronisation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

This paper proposes a new strategy for learning powerful cross-modal embeddings for audio-to-video synchronization. Here, we set up the problem as one of cross-modal retrieval, where the objective is to find the most relevant audio segment given a short video clip. The method builds on the recent advances in learning representations from cross-modal self-supervision. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) we propose a new learning strategy where the embeddings are learnt via a multi-way matching problem, as opposed to a binary classification (matching or non-matching) problem as proposed by recent papers; (2) we demonstrate that performance of this method far exceeds the existing baselines on the synchronization task; (3) we use the learnt embeddings for visual speech recognition in self-supervision, and show that the performance matches the representations learnt end-to-end in a fully-supervised manner.
From 2D to 3D Geodesic-based Garment Matching
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

A new approach for 2D to 3D garment retexturing is proposed based on Gaussian mixture models and thin plate splines (TPS). An automatically segmented garment of an individual is matched to a new source garment and rendered, resulting in augmented images in which the target garment has been retextured by using the texture of the source garment. We divide the problem into garment boundary matching based on Gaussian mixture models and then interpolate inner points using surface topology extracted through geodesic paths, which leads to a more realistic result than standard approaches. We evaluated and compared our system quantitatively by mean square error (MSE) and qualitatively using the mean opinion score (MOS), showing the benefits of the proposed methodology on our gathered dataset.
Power Market Price Forecasting via Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

A study on power market price forecasting by deep learning is presented. As one of the most successful deep learning frameworks, the LSTM (Long short-term memory) neural network is utilized. The hourly prices data from the New England and PJM day-ahead markets are used in this study. First, a LSTM network is formulated and trained. Then the raw input and output data are preprocessed by unit scaling, and the trained network is tested on the real price data under different input lengths, forecasting horizons and data sizes. Its performance is also compared with other existing methods. The forecasted results demonstrate that, the LSTM deep neural network can outperform the others under different application settings in this problem.
Distribution Networks for Open Set Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

In open set learning, a model must be able to generalize to novel classes when it encounters a sample that does not belong to any of the classes it has seen before. Open set learning poses a realistic learning scenario that is receiving growing attention. Existing studies on open set learning mainly focused on detecting novel classes, but few studies tried to model them for differentiating novel classes. In this paper, we recognize that novel classes should be different from each other, and propose distribution networks for open set learning that can model different novel classes based on probability distributions. We hypothesize that, through a certain mapping, samples from different classes with the same classification criterion should follow different probability distributions from the same distribution family. A deep neural network is learned to map the samples in the original feature space to a latent space where the distributions of known classes can be jointly learned with the network. We additionally propose a distribution parameter transfer and updating strategy for novel class modeling when a novel class is detected in the latent space. By novel class modeling, the detected novel classes can serve as known classes to the subsequent classification. Our experimental results on image datasets MNIST and CIFAR10 show that the distribution networks can detect novel classes accurately, and model them well for the subsequent classification tasks.
On the Existence and Long-Term Stability of Voltage Equilibria in Power Systems with Constant Power Loads
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2018
Year: 2018

Voltage instability is a major threat in power system operation. The growing presence of constant power loads significantly aggravates this issue, hence motivating the development of new analysis methods for both existence and stability of voltage equilibria. Formally, this problem can be cast as the analysis of solutions of a set of nonlinear algebraic equations of the form $f(x)=0$, where $f:\mathbb{R}^n \mapsto \mathbb{R}^{n}$, and the associated differential equation $\dot x=f(x)$. By invoking advanced concepts of dynamical systems theory and effectively exploiting its monotonicity, we exhibit all possible scenarios for existence, uniqueness and stability, of its equilibria. We prove that, if there are equilibria, there is a distinguished one that is locally stable and attractive, and we give some physically-interpretable conditions such that it is unique. Moreover, a simple on-line procedure to decide whether equilibria exist of not, and to compute the distinguished one is proposed. In addition, we show how the proposed framework can be applied to long-term voltage stability analysis in AC power systems, multi-terminal high-voltage DC systems and DC microgrids.
Sampler Design for Bayesian Personalized Ranking by Leveraging View Data
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2018
Year: 2018

Bayesian Personalized Ranking (BPR) is a representative pairwise learning method for optimizing recommendation models. It is widely known that the performance of BPR depends largely on the quality of negative sampler. In this paper, we make two contributions with respect to BPR. First, we find that sampling negative items from the whole space is unnecessary and may even degrade the performance. Second, focusing on the purchase feedback of E-commerce, we propose an effective sampler for BPR by leveraging the additional view data. In our proposed sampler, users' viewed interactions are considered as an intermediate feedback between those purchased and unobserved interactions. The pairwise rankings of user preference among these three types of interactions are jointly learned, and a user-oriented weighting strategy is considered during learning process, which is more effective and flexible. Compared to the vanilla BPR that applies a uniform sampler on all candidates, our view-enhanced sampler enhances BPR with a relative improvement over 37.03% and 16.40% on two real-world datasets. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering users' additional feedback when modeling their preference on different items, which avoids sampling negative items indiscriminately and inefficiently.
Exclusive Independent Probability Estimation using Deep 3D Fully Convolutional DenseNets: Application to IsoIntense Infant Brain MRI Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

The most recent fast and accurate image segmentation methods are built upon fully convolutional deep neural networks. In this paper, we propose new deep learning strategies for DenseNets to improve segmenting images with subtle differences in intensity values and features. We aim to segment brain tissue on infant brain MRI at about 6 months of age where white matter and gray matter of the developing brain show similar T1 and T2 relaxation times, thus appear to have similar intensity values on both T1- and T2-weighted MRI scans. Brain tissue segmentation at this age is, therefore, very challenging. To this end, we propose an exclusive multi-label training strategy to segment the mutually exclusive brain tissues with similarity loss functions that automatically balance the training based on class prevalence. Using our proposed training strategy based on similarity loss functions and patch prediction fusion we decrease the number of parameters in the network, reduce the complexity of the training process focusing the attention on less number of tasks, while mitigating the effects of data imbalance between labels and inaccuracies near patch borders. By taking advantage of these strategies we were able to perform fast image segmentation (90 seconds per 3D volume), using a network with less parameters than many state-of-the-art networks, overcoming issues such as 3Dvs2D training and large vs small patch size selection, while achieving the top performance in segmenting brain tissue among all methods tested in first and second round submissions of the isointense infant brain MRI segmentation (iSeg) challenge according to the official challenge test results. Our proposed strategy improves the training process through balanced training and by reducing its complexity while providing a trained model that works for any size input image and is fast and more accurate than many state-of-the-art methods.
Estimating the Frequency Coupling Matrix from Network Measurements
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2018
Year: 2018

Power converters are present in increasing numbers in the electric power grid. They are a major source of harmonic currents and voltages, which can reduce power quality and trip protection devices. The frequency coupling matrix (FCM) is a general technique for modeling converter harmonics. It can be obtained through experimental characterization or, given a converter's internal parameters, direct calculation. In this paper, we estimate FCMs from network measurements. We give a novel harmonic reduction theorem for computing equivalent, virtual FCMs for unobservable portions of a network. We estimate FCMs and harmonic line admittances from PMU measurements, and give an efficient online version for the FCM problem. We test our approaches on a numerical example, and show that the estimation error is low under noisy observations.
Opacity, Obscurity, and the Geometry of Question-Asking
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2018
Year: 2018

Asking questions is a pervasive human activity, but little is understood about what makes them difficult to answer. An analysis of a pair of large databases, of New York Times crosswords and questions from the quiz-show Jeopardy, establishes two orthogonal dimensions of question difficulty: obscurity (the rarity of the answer) and opacity (the indirectness of question cues, operationalized with word2vec). The importance of opacity, and the role of synergistic information in resolving it, suggests that accounts of difficulty in terms of prior expectations captures only a part of the question-asking process. A further regression analysis shows the presence of additional dimensions to question-asking: question complexity, the answer's local network density, cue intersection, and the presence of signal words. Our work shows how question-askers can help their interlocutors by using contextual cues, or, conversely, how a particular kind of unfamiliarity with the domain in question can make it harder for individuals to learn from others. Taken together, these results suggest how Bayesian models of question difficulty can be supplemented by process models and accounts of the heuristics individuals use to navigate conceptual spaces.
In-memory multiplication engine with SOT-MRAM based stochastic computing
Venue: arXiv cs.AR 2018
Year: 2018

Processing-in-memory (PIM) turns out to be a promising solution to breakthrough the memory wall and the power wall. While prior PIM designs yield successful implementation of bitwise Boolean logic operations locally in memory, it is difficult to accomplish the multiplication (MUL) instruction in a fast and efficient manner. In this paper, we propose a new stochastic computing (SC) design to perform MUL with in-memory operations. Instead of using the stochastic number generators (SNGs), we harness the inherent stochasticity in the memory write behavior of the magnetic random access memory (MRAM). Each memory bit serves as an SC engine, performs MUL on operands in the form of write voltage pulses, and stores the MUL outcome in-situ. The proposed design provides up to 4x improvement in performance compared with conversational SC approaches, and achieves 18x speedup over implementing MUL with only in-memory bitwise Boolean logic operations.
SelfKin: Self Adjusted Deep Model For Kinship Verification
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

One of the unsolved challenges in the field of biometrics and face recognition is Kinship Verification. This problem aims to understand if two people are family-related and how (sisters, brothers, etc.) Solving this problem can give rise to varied tasks and applications. In the area of homeland security (HLS) it is crucial to auto-detect if the person questioned is related to a wanted suspect, In the field of biometrics, kinship-verification can help to discriminate between families by photos and in the field of predicting or fashion it can help to predict an older or younger model of people faces. Lately, and with the advanced deep learning technology, this problem has gained focus from the research community in matters of data and research. In this article, we propose using a Deep Learning approach for solving the Kinship-Verification problem. Further, we offer a novel self-learning deep model, which learns the essential features from different faces. We show that our model wins the Recognize Families In the Wild(RFIW2018,FG2018) challenge and obtains state-of-the-art results. Moreover, we show that our proposed model can reduce the size of the network by half without loss in performance.
Self Attention Grid for Person Re-Identification
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper, we present an attention mechanism scheme to improve person re-identification task. Inspired by biology, we propose Self Attention Grid (SAG) to discover the most informative parts from a high-resolution image using its internal representation. In particular, given an input image, the proposed model is fed with two copies of the same image and consists of two branches. The upper branch processes the high-resolution image and learns high dimensional feature representation while the lower branch processes the low-resolution image and learn a filtering attention grid. We apply a max filter operation to non-overlapping sub-regions on the high feature representation before element-wise multiplied with the output of the second branch. The feature maps of the second branch are subsequently weighted to reflect the importance of each patch of the grid using a softmax operation. Our attention module helps the network learn the most discriminative visual features of multiple image regions and is specifically optimized to attend feature representation at different levels. Extensive experiments on three large-scale datasets show that our self-attention mechanism significantly improves the baseline model and outperforms various state-of-art models by a large margin.
Kishon's Poker Game
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2018
Year: 2018

We present an approach for proving the correctness of distributed algorithms that obviate interleaving of processes' actions. The main part of the correctness proof is conducted at a higher abstract level and uses Tarskian system executions that combine two separate issues: the specification of the serial process that executes its protocol alone (no concurrency here), and the specification of the communication objects (no code here). In order to explain this approach a short algorithm for two concurrent processes that we call "Kishon's Poker" is introduced and is used as a platform where this approach is compared to the standard one which is based on the notions of global state, step, and history.
Neural Arithmetic Expression Calculator
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2018
Year: 2018

This paper presents a pure neural solver for arithmetic expression calculation (AEC) problem. Previous work utilizes the powerful capabilities of deep neural networks and attempts to build an end-to-end model to solve this problem. However, most of these methods can only deal with the additive operations. It is still a challenging problem to solve the complex expression calculation problem, which includes the adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and bracketing operations. In this work, we regard the arithmetic expression calculation as a hierarchical reinforcement learning problem. An arithmetic operation is decomposed into a series of sub-tasks, and each sub-task is dealt with by a skill module. The skill module could be a basic module performing elementary operations, or interactive module performing complex operations by invoking other skill models. With curriculum learning, our model can deal with a complex arithmetic expression calculation with the deep hierarchical structure of skill models. Experiments show that our model significantly outperforms the previous models for arithmetic expression calculation.
Detecting Features of Tools, Objects, and Actions from Effects in a Robot using Deep Learning
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2018
Year: 2018

We propose a tool-use model that can detect the features of tools, target objects, and actions from the provided effects of object manipulation. We construct a model that enables robots to manipulate objects with tools, using infant learning as a concept. To realize this, we train sensory-motor data recorded during a tool-use task performed by a robot with deep learning. Experiments include four factors: (1) tools, (2) objects, (3) actions, and (4) effects, which the model considers simultaneously. For evaluation, the robot generates predicted images and motions given information of the effects of using unknown tools and objects. We confirm that the robot is capable of detecting features of tools, objects, and actions by learning the effects and executing the task.