OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
On the Capacity of Cloud Radio Access Networks with Oblivious Relaying
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2019
Year: 2019

We study the transmission over a network in which users send information to a remote destination through relay nodes that are connected to the destination via finite-capacity error-free links, i.e., a cloud radio access network. The relays are constrained to operate without knowledge of the users' codebooks, i.e., they perform oblivious processing. The destination, or central processor, however, is informed about the users' codebooks. We establish a single-letter characterization of the capacity region of this model for a class of discrete memoryless channels in which the outputs at the relay nodes are independent given the users' inputs. We show that both relaying à-la Cover-El Gamal, i.e., compress-and-forward with joint decompression and decoding, and "noisy network coding", are optimal. The proof of the converse part establishes, and utilizes, connections with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) source coding problem under logarithmic loss distortion measure. Extensions to general discrete memoryless channels are also investigated. In this case, we establish inner and outer bounds on the capacity region. For memoryless Gaussian channels within the studied class of channels, we characterize the capacity region when the users are constrained to time-share among Gaussian codebooks. Furthermore, we also discuss the suboptimality of separate decompression-decoding and the role of time-sharing.
Rethinking generalization requires revisiting old ideas: statistical mechanics approaches and complex learning behavior
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

We describe an approach to understand the peculiar and counterintuitive generalization properties of deep neural networks. The approach involves going beyond worst-case theoretical capacity control frameworks that have been popular in machine learning in recent years to revisit old ideas in the statistical mechanics of neural networks. Within this approach, we present a prototypical Very Simple Deep Learning (VSDL) model, whose behavior is controlled by two control parameters, one describing an effective amount of data, or load, on the network (that decreases when noise is added to the input), and one with an effective temperature interpretation (that increases when algorithms are early stopped). Using this model, we describe how a very simple application of ideas from the statistical mechanics theory of generalization provides a strong qualitative description of recently-observed empirical results regarding the inability of deep neural networks not to overfit training data, discontinuous learning and sharp transitions in the generalization properties of learning algorithms, etc.
Quantum versus Classical Online Streaming Algorithms with Logarithmic Size of Memory
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2019
Year: 2019

We consider online algorithms with respect to the competitive ratio. Here, we investigate quantum and classical one-way automata with non-constant size of memory (streaming algorithms) as a model for online algorithms. We construct problems that can be solved by quantum online streaming algorithms better than by classical ones in a case of logarithmic or sublogarithmic size of memory.
Infinite dimensional compressed sensing from anisotropic measurements and applications to inverse problems in PDE
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2019
Year: 2019

We consider a compressed sensing problem in which both the measurement and the sparsifying systems are assumed to be frames (not necessarily tight) of the underlying Hilbert space of signals, which may be finite or infinite dimensional. The main result gives explicit bounds on the number of measurements in order to achieve stable recovery, which depends on the mutual coherence of the two systems. As a simple corollary, we prove the efficiency of nonuniform sampling strategies in cases when the two systems are not incoherent, but only asymptotically incoherent, as with the recovery of wavelet coefficients from Fourier samples. This general framework finds applications to inverse problems in partial differential equations, where the standard assumptions of compressed sensing are often not satisfied. Several examples are discussed, with a special focus on electrical impedance tomography.
A Multiple Data Source Framework for the Identification of Activities of Daily Living Based on Mobile Device Data
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2019
Year: 2019

Most mobile devices include motion, magnetic, acoustic, and location sensors. They allow the implementation of a framework for the recognition of Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and its environments, composed by the acquisition, processing, fusion, and classification of data. This study compares different implementations of artificial neural networks, concluding that the obtained results were 85.89% and 100% for the recognition of standard ADL. Additionally, for the identification of standing activities with Deep Neural Networks (DNN) respectively, and 86.50% for the identification of the environments with Feedforward Neural Networks. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed framework can achieve robust performance from the data fusion of off-the-shelf mobile devices.
Accountability of AI Under the Law: The Role of Explanation
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2019
Year: 2019

The ubiquity of systems using artificial intelligence or "AI" has brought increasing attention to how those systems should be regulated. The choice of how to regulate AI systems will require care. AI systems have the potential to synthesize large amounts of data, allowing for greater levels of personalization and precision than ever before---applications range from clinical decision support to autonomous driving and predictive policing. That said, there exist legitimate concerns about the intentional and unintentional negative consequences of AI systems. There are many ways to hold AI systems accountable. In this work, we focus on one: explanation. Questions about a legal right to explanation from AI systems was recently debated in the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and thus thinking carefully about when and how explanation from AI systems might improve accountability is timely. In this work, we review contexts in which explanation is currently required under the law, and then list the technical considerations that must be considered if we desired AI systems that could provide kinds of explanations that are currently required of humans.
The Design of a Mobile App for Promotion of Physical Activity and Self-Management in Prostate Cancer Survivors: Personas, Feature Ideation and Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2019
Year: 2019

Most prostate cancer survivors are confronted with disease-related and treatment-related side effects that impact their quality of life. A tool that combines specific physical activity coaching with the promotion of a healthy lifestyle and self-management guidance might be a successful method to enhance a lifestyle change in these patients. As a prerequisite for useful health technology, it is important to consider a design process centred in the patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the context of the problem and the user needs to support the ideation of a low-fidelity prototype of a tool to promote a healthy lifestyle among early-stage prostate cancer survivors. A user-centred design approach was followed involving a multidisciplinary team. The prototype was developed in 3 phases. In phase 1, the context was studied with 2 systematic reviews of the state of practice and consulting with 3 specialists in Oncology, resulting in a global use case and main requirements. In phase 2, the needs and barriers of the users were studied based on literature research and validated with 3 specialists, resulting in the creation of 3 personas. In phase 3, 2 sessions were held to ideate and prioritize possible app features, based on brainstorming and selection techniques. Using the Ninja Mock and Proto.io software a low-fidelity prototype was developed, resulting in 25 interactive screens. Understanding the user needs and context seems to be essential to highlight key goals, hence facilitating the bridge between ideation of the tool and the intended users tasks and experiences. The conclusion of this first stage of the design process brings valuable details (such as barriers of the users to technology and to physical activity) for future iterations of design of the mobile app.
Fisher-Rao Metric, Geometry, and Complexity of Neural Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

We study the relationship between geometry and capacity measures for deep neural networks from an invariance viewpoint. We introduce a new notion of capacity --- the Fisher-Rao norm --- that possesses desirable invariance properties and is motivated by Information Geometry. We discover an analytical characterization of the new capacity measure, through which we establish norm-comparison inequalities and further show that the new measure serves as an umbrella for several existing norm-based complexity measures. We discuss upper bounds on the generalization error induced by the proposed measure. Extensive numerical experiments on CIFAR-10 support our theoretical findings. Our theoretical analysis rests on a key structural lemma about partial derivatives of multi-layer rectifier networks.
Estimating Infection Sources in Networks Using Partial Timestamps
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2019
Year: 2019

We study the problem of identifying infection sources in a network based on the network topology, and a subset of infection timestamps. In the case of a single infection source in a tree network, we derive the maximum likelihood estimator of the source and the unknown diffusion parameters. We then introduce a new heuristic involving an optimization over a parametrized family of Gromov matrices to develop a single source estimation algorithm for general graphs. Compared with the breadth-first search tree heuristic commonly adopted in the literature, simulations demonstrate that our approach achieves better estimation accuracy than several other benchmark algorithms, even though these require more information like the diffusion parameters. We next develop a multiple sources estimation algorithm for general graphs, which first partitions the graph into source candidate clusters, and then applies our single source estimation algorithm to each cluster. We show that if the graph is a tree, then each source candidate cluster contains at least one source. Simulations using synthetic and real networks, and experiments using real-world data suggest that our proposed algorithms are able to estimate the true infection source(s) to within a small number of hops with a small portion of the infection timestamps being observed.
Strategies for Conceptual Change in Convolutional Neural Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

A remarkable feature of human beings is their capacity for creative behaviour, referring to their ability to react to problems in ways that are novel, surprising, and useful. Transformational creativity is a form of creativity where the creative behaviour is induced by a transformation of the actor's conceptual space, that is, the representational system with which the actor interprets its environment. In this report, we focus on ways of adapting systems of learned representations as they switch from performing one task to performing another. We describe an experimental comparison of multiple strategies for adaptation of learned features, and evaluate how effectively each of these strategies realizes the adaptation, in terms of the amount of training, and in terms of their ability to cope with restricted availability of training data. We show, among other things, that across handwritten digits, natural images, and classical music, adaptive strategies are systematically more effective than a baseline method that starts learning from scratch.
Directed Graph Minors and Serial-Parallel Width
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2019
Year: 2019

Graph minors are a primary tool in understanding the structure of undirected graphs, with many conceptual and algorithmic implications. We propose new variants of \emph{directed graph minors} and \emph{directed graph embeddings}, by modifying familiar definitions. For the class of 2-terminal directed acyclic graphs (TDAGs) our two definitions coincide, and the class is closed under both operations. The usefulness of our directed minor operations is demonstrated by characterizing all TDAGs with serial-parallel width at most $k$; a class of networks known to guarantee bounded negative externality in nonatomic routing games. Our characterization implies that a TDAG has serial-parallel width of $1$ if and only if it is a directed series-parallel graph. We also study the computational complexity of finding a directed minor and computing the serial-parallel width.
An Iterative Scheme for Leverage-based Approximate Aggregation
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2019
Year: 2019

The current data explosion poses great challenges to the approximate aggregation with an efficiency and accuracy. To address this problem, we propose a novel approach to calculate the aggregation answers with a high accuracy using only a small portion of the data. We introduce leverages to reflect individual differences in the samples from a statistical perspective. Two kinds of estimators, the leverage-based estimator, and the sketch estimator (a "rough picture" of the aggregation answer), are in constraint relations and iteratively improved according to the actual conditions until their difference is below a threshold. Due to the iteration mechanism and the leverages, our approach achieves a high accuracy. Moreover, some features, such as not requiring recording the sampled data and easy to extend to various execution modes (e.g., the online mode), make our approach well suited to deal with big data. Experiments show that our approach has an extraordinary performance, and when compared with the uniform sampling, our approach can achieve high-quality answers with only 1/3 of the same sample size.
INDIGO-DataCloud:A data and computing platform to facilitate seamless access to e-infrastructures
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2019
Year: 2019

This paper describes the achievements of the H2020 project INDIGO-DataCloud. The project has provided e-infrastructures with tools, applications and cloud framework enhancements to manage the demanding requirements of scientific communities, either locally or through enhanced interfaces. The middleware developed allows to federate hybrid resources, to easily write, port and run scientific applications to the cloud. In particular, we have extended existing PaaS (Platform as a Service) solutions, allowing public and private e-infrastructures, including those provided by EGI, EUDAT, and Helix Nebula, to integrate their existing services and make them available through AAI services compliant with GEANT interfederation policies, thus guaranteeing transparency and trust in the provisioning of such services. Our middleware facilitates the execution of applications using containers on Cloud and Grid based infrastructures, as well as on HPC clusters. Our developments are freely downloadable as open source components, and are already being integrated into many scientific applications.
On Derandomizing Local Distributed Algorithms
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2019
Year: 2019

The gap between the known randomized and deterministic local distributed algorithms underlies arguably the most fundamental and central open question in distributed graph algorithms. In this paper, we develop a generic and clean recipe for derandomizing LOCAL algorithms. We also exhibit how this simple recipe leads to significant improvements on a number of problem. Two main results are: - An improved distributed hypergraph maximal matching algorithm, improving on Fischer, Ghaffari, and Kuhn [FOCS'17], and giving improved algorithms for edge-coloring, maximum matching approximation, and low out-degree edge orientation. The first gives an improved algorithm for Open Problem 11.4 of the book of Barenboim and Elkin, and the last gives the first positive resolution of their Open Problem 11.10. - An improved distributed algorithm for the Lovász Local Lemma, which gets closer to a conjecture of Chang and Pettie [FOCS'17], and moreover leads to improved distributed algorithms for problems such as defective coloring and $k$-SAT.
Continuous DR-submodular Maximization: Structure and Algorithms
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2019
Year: 2019

DR-submodular continuous functions are important objectives with wide real-world applications spanning MAP inference in determinantal point processes (DPPs), and mean-field inference for probabilistic submodular models, amongst others. DR-submodularity captures a subclass of non-convex functions that enables both exact minimization and approximate maximization in polynomial time. In this work we study the problem of maximizing non-monotone DR-submodular continuous functions under general down-closed convex constraints. We start by investigating geometric properties that underlie such objectives, e.g., a strong relation between (approximately) stationary points and global optimum is proved. These properties are then used to devise two optimization algorithms with provable guarantees. Concretely, we first devise a "two-phase" algorithm with $1/4$ approximation guarantee. This algorithm allows the use of existing methods for finding (approximately) stationary points as a subroutine, thus, harnessing recent progress in non-convex optimization. Then we present a non-monotone Frank-Wolfe variant with $1/e$ approximation guarantee and sublinear convergence rate. Finally, we extend our approach to a broader class of generalized DR-submodular continuous functions, which captures a wider spectrum of applications. Our theoretical findings are validated on synthetic and real-world problem instances.
Distributed Kalman Filters with State Equality Constraints: Time-based and Event-triggered Communications
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2019
Year: 2019

In this paper, we investigate a distributed estimation problem for multi-agent systems with state equality constraints (SEC). First, under a time-based consensus communication protocol, applying a modified projection operator and the covariance intersection fusion method, we propose a distributed Kalman filter with guaranteed consistency and satisfied SEC. Furthermore, we establish the relationship between consensus step, SEC and estimation error covariance in dynamic and steady processes, respectively. Employing a space decomposition method, we show the error covariance in the constraint set can be arbitrarily small by setting a sufficiently large consensus step. Besides, we propose an extended collective observability (ECO) condition based on SEC, which is milder than existing observability conditions. Under the ECO condition, through utilizing a technique of matrix approximation, we prove the boundedness of error covariance and the exponentially asymptotic unbiasedness of state estimate, respectively. Moreover, under the ECO condition for linear time-invariant systems with SEC, we provide a novel event-triggered communication protocol by employing the consistency, and give an offline design principle of triggering thresholds with guaranteed boundedness of error covariance. More importantly, we quantify and analyze the communication rate for the proposed event-triggered distributed Kalman filter, and provide optimization based methods to obtain the minimal (maximal) successive non-triggering (triggering) times. Two simulations are provided to demonstrate the developed theoretical results and the effectiveness of the filters.
Weakly-supervised Semantic Parsing with Abstract Examples
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2019
Year: 2019

Training semantic parsers from weak supervision (denotations) rather than strong supervision (programs) complicates training in two ways. First, a large search space of potential programs needs to be explored at training time to find a correct program. Second, spurious programs that accidentally lead to a correct denotation add noise to training. In this work we propose that in closed worlds with clear semantic types, one can substantially alleviate these problems by utilizing an abstract representation, where tokens in both the language utterance and program are lifted to an abstract form. We show that these abstractions can be defined with a handful of lexical rules and that they result in sharing between different examples that alleviates the difficulties in training. To test our approach, we develop the first semantic parser for CNLVR, a challenging visual reasoning dataset, where the search space is large and overcoming spuriousness is critical, because denotations are either TRUE or FALSE, and thus random programs are likely to lead to a correct denotation. Our method substantially improves performance, and reaches 82.5% accuracy, a 14.7% absolute accuracy improvement compared to the best reported accuracy so far.
Towards Plausible Graph Anonymization
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2019
Year: 2019

Social graphs derived from online social interactions contain a wealth of information that is nowadays extensively used by both industry and academia. However, as social graphs contain sensitive information, they need to be properly anonymized before release. Most of the existing graph anonymization mechanisms rely on the perturbation of the original graph's edge set. In this paper, we identify a fundamental weakness of these mechanisms: They neglect the strong structural proximity between friends in social graphs, thus add implausible fake edges for anonymization. To exploit this weakness, we first propose a metric to quantify an edge's plausibility by relying on graph embedding. Extensive experiments on three real-life social network datasets demonstrate that our plausibility metric can very effectively differentiate fake edges from original edges with AUC (area under the ROC curve) values above 0.95 in most of the cases. We then rely on a Gaussian mixture model to automatically derive the threshold on the edge plausibility values to determine whether an edge is fake, which enables us to recover to a large extent the original graph from the anonymized graph. We further demonstrate that our graph recovery attack jeopardizes the privacy guarantees provided by the considered graph anonymization mechanisms. To mitigate this vulnerability, we propose a method to generate fake yet plausible edges given the graph structure and incorporate it into the existing anonymization mechanisms. Our evaluation demonstrates that the enhanced mechanisms decrease the chances of graph recovery, reduce the success of graph de-anonymization (up to 30%), and provide even better utility than the existing anonymization mechanisms.
Frame Interpolation with Multi-Scale Deep Loss Functions and Generative Adversarial Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2019
Year: 2019

Frame interpolation attempts to synthesise frames given one or more consecutive video frames. In recent years, deep learning approaches, and notably convolutional neural networks, have succeeded at tackling low- and high-level computer vision problems including frame interpolation. These techniques often tackle two problems, namely algorithm efficiency and reconstruction quality. In this paper, we present a multi-scale generative adversarial network for frame interpolation (\mbox{FIGAN}). To maximise the efficiency of our network, we propose a novel multi-scale residual estimation module where the predicted flow and synthesised frame are constructed in a coarse-to-fine fashion. To improve the quality of synthesised intermediate video frames, our network is jointly supervised at different levels with a perceptual loss function that consists of an adversarial and two content losses. We evaluate the proposed approach using a collection of 60fps videos from YouTube-8m. Our results improve the state-of-the-art accuracy and provide subjective visual quality comparable to the best performing interpolation method at x47 faster runtime.