OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Fully Optical Spacecraft Communications: Implementing an Omnidirectional PV-Cell Receiver and 8Mb/s LED Visible Light Downlink with Deep Learning Error Correction
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2018
Year: 2018

Free space optical communication techniques have been the subject of numerous investigations in recent years, with multiple missions expected to fly in the near future. Existing methods require high pointing accuracies, drastically driving up overall system cost. Recent developments in LED-based visible light communication (VLC) and past in-orbit experiments have convinced us that the technology has reached a critical level of maturity. On these premises, we propose a new optical communication system utilizing a VLC downlink and a high throughput, omnidirectional photovoltaic cell receiver system. By performing error-correction via deep learning methods and by utilizing phase-delay interference, the system is able to deliver data rates that match those of traditional laser-based solutions. A prototype of the proposed system has been constructed, demonstrating the scheme to be a feasible alternative to laser-based methods. This creates an opportunity for the full scale development of optical communication techniques on small spacecraft as a backup telemetry beacon or as a high throughput link.
Deep Shape Matching
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

We cast shape matching as metric learning with convolutional networks. We break the end-to-end process of image representation into two parts. Firstly, well established efficient methods are chosen to turn the images into edge maps. Secondly, the network is trained with edge maps of landmark images, which are automatically obtained by a structure-from-motion pipeline. The learned representation is evaluated on a range of different tasks, providing improvements on challenging cases of domain generalization, generic sketch-based image retrieval or its fine-grained counterpart. In contrast to other methods that learn a different model per task, object category, or domain, we use the same network throughout all our experiments, achieving state-of-the-art results in multiple benchmarks.
Hybrid High-Order methods for finite deformations of hyperelastic materials
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2018
Year: 2018

We devise and evaluate numerically Hybrid High-Order (HHO) methods for hyperelastic materials undergoing finite deformations. The HHO methods use as discrete unknowns piecewise polynomials of order $k\ge1$ on the mesh skeleton, together with cell-based polynomials that can be eliminated locally by static condensation. The discrete problem is written as the minimization of the broken nonlinear elastic energy where a local reconstruction of the displacement gradient is used. Two HHO methods are considered: a stabilized method where the gradient is reconstructed as a tensor-valued polynomial of order $k$ and a stabilization is added to the discrete energy functional, and an unstabilized method which reconstructs a stable higher-order gradient and circumvents the need for stabilization. Both methods satisfy the principle of virtual work locally with equilibrated tractions. We present a numerical study of both HHO methods on test cases with known solution and on more challenging three-dimensional test cases including finite deformations with strong shear layers and cavitating voids. We assess the computational efficiency of both methods, and we compare our results to those obtained with an industrial software using conforming finite elements and to results from the literature. Both methods exhibit robust behavior in the quasi-incompressible regime.
Automatic Differentiation of Rigid Body Dynamics for Optimal Control and Estimation
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2018
Year: 2018

Many algorithms for control, optimization and estimation in robotics depend on derivatives of the underlying system dynamics, e.g. to compute linearizations, sensitivities or gradient directions. However, we show that when dealing with Rigid Body Dynamics, these derivatives are difficult to derive analytically and to implement efficiently. To overcome this issue, we extend the modelling tool `RobCoGen' to be compatible with Automatic Differentiation. Additionally, we propose how to automatically obtain the derivatives and generate highly efficient source code. We highlight the flexibility and performance of the approach in two application examples. First, we show a Trajectory Optimization example for the quadrupedal robot HyQ, which employs auto-differentiation on the dynamics including a contact model. Second, we present a hardware experiment in which a 6 DoF robotic arm avoids a randomly moving obstacle in a go-to task by fast, dynamic replanning.
A neighborhood-preserving translation operator on graphs
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2018
Year: 2018

In this paper, we introduce translation operators on graphs. Contrary to spectrally-defined translations in the framework of graph signal processing, our operators mimic neighborhood-preserving properties of translation operators defined in Euclidean spaces directly in the vertex domain, and therefore do not deform a signal as it is translated. We show that in the case of grid graphs built on top of a metric space, these operators exactly match underlying Euclidean translations, suggesting that they completely leverage the underlying metric. More generally, these translations are defined on any graph, and can therefore be used to process signals on those graphs. We show that identifying proposed translations is in general an NP-Complete problem. To cope with this issue, we introduce relaxed versions of these operators, and illustrate translation of signals on random graphs.
Lower Bounds for Approximating Graph Parameters via Communication Complexity
Venue: arXiv cs.CC 2018
Year: 2018

In a celebrated work, Blais, Brody, and Matulef developed a technique for proving property testing lower bounds via reductions from communication complexity. Their work focused on testing properties of functions, and yielded new lower bounds as well as simplified analyses of known lower bounds. Here, we take a further step in generalizing the methodology of Blais et al. to analyze the query complexity of graph parameter estimation problems. In particular, our technique decouples the lower bound arguments from the representation of the graph, allowing it to work with any query type. We illustrate our technique by providing new simpler proofs of previously known tight lower bounds for the query complexity of several graph problems: estimating the number of edges in a graph, sampling edges from an almost-uniform distribution, estimating the number of triangles (and more generally, $r$-cliques) in a graph, and estimating the moments of the degree distribution of a graph. We also prove new lower bounds for estimating the edge connectivity of a graph and estimating the number of instances of any fixed subgraph in a graph. We show that the lower bounds for estimating the number of triangles and edge connectivity also hold in a strictly stronger computational model that allows access to uniformly random edge samples.
Generating OWA weights using truncated distributions
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2018
Year: 2018

Ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operators have been widely used in decision making these past few years. An important issue facing the OWA operators' users is the determination of the OWA weights. This paper introduces an OWA determination method based on truncated distributions that enables intuitive generation of OWA weights according to a certain level of risk and trade-off. These two dimensions are represented by the two first moments of the truncated distribution. We illustrate our approach with the well-know normal distribution and the definition of a continuous parabolic decision-strategy space. We finally study the impact of the number of criteria on the results.
Fast semi-supervised discriminant analysis for binary classification of large data-sets
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2018
Year: 2018

High-dimensional data requires scalable algorithms. We propose and analyze three scalable and related algorithms for semi-supervised discriminant analysis (SDA). These methods are based on Krylov subspace methods which exploit the data sparsity and the shift-invariance of Krylov subspaces. In addition, the problem definition was improved by adding centralization to the semi-supervised setting. The proposed methods are evaluated on a industry-scale data set from a pharmaceutical company to predict compound activity on target proteins. The results show that SDA achieves good predictive performance and our methods only require a few seconds, significantly improving computation time on previous state of the art.
An App Performance Optimization Advisor for Mobile Device App Marketplaces
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2018
Year: 2018

On mobile phones, users and developers use apps official marketplaces serving as repositories of apps. The Google Play Store and Apple Store are the official marketplaces of Android and Apple products which offer more than a million apps. Although both repositories offer description of apps, information concerning performance is not available. Due to the constrained hardware of mobile devices, users and developers have to meticulously manage the resources available and they should be given access to performance information about apps. Even if this information was available, the selection of apps would still depend on user preferences and it would require a huge cognitive effort to make optimal decisions. Considering this fact we propose APOA, a recommendation system which can be implemented in any marketplace for helping users and developers to compare apps in terms of performance. APOA uses as input metric values of apps and a set of metrics to optimize. It solves an optimization problem and it generates optimal sets of apps for different user's context. We show how APOA works over an Android case study. Out of 140 apps, we define typical usage scenarios and we collect measurements of power, CPU, memory, and network usages to demonstrate the benefit of using APOA.
Viewpoint Invariant Action Recognition using RGB-D Videos
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

In video-based action recognition, viewpoint variations often pose major challenges because the same actions can appear different from different views. We use the complementary RGB and Depth information from the RGB-D cameras to address this problem. The proposed technique capitalizes on the spatio-temporal information available in the two data streams to the extract action features that are largely insensitive to the viewpoint variations. We use the RGB data to compute dense trajectories that are translated to viewpoint insensitive deep features under a non-linear knowledge transfer model. Similarly, the Depth stream is used to extract CNN-based view invariant features on which Fourier Temporal Pyramid is computed to incorporate the temporal information. The heterogeneous features from the two streams are combined and used as a dictionary to predict the label of the test samples. To that end, we propose a sparse-dense collaborative representation classification scheme that strikes a balance between the discriminative abilities of the dense and the sparse representations of the samples over the extracted heterogeneous dictionary.
A probabilistic and multi-objective analysis of lexicase selection and epsilon-lexicase selection
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2018
Year: 2018

Lexicase selection is a parent selection method that considers training cases individually, rather than in aggregate, when performing parent selection. Whereas previous work has demonstrated the ability of lexicase selection to solve difficult problems in program synthesis and symbolic regression, the central goal of this paper is to develop the theoretical underpinnings that explain its performance. To this end, we derive an analytical formula that gives the expected probabilities of selection under lexicase selection, given a population and its behavior. In addition, we expand upon the relation of lexicase selection to many-objective optimization methods to describe the behavior of lexicase selection, which is to select individuals on the boundaries of Pareto fronts in high-dimensional space. We show analytically why lexicase selection performs more poorly for certain sizes of population and training cases, and show why it has been shown to perform more poorly in continuous error spaces. To address this last concern, we propose new variants of epsilon-lexicase selection, a method that modifies the pass condition in lexicase selection to allow near-elite individuals to pass cases, thereby improving selection performance with continuous errors. We show that epsilon-lexicase outperforms several diversity-maintenance strategies on a number of real-world and synthetic regression problems.
Multi-Agent Distributed Lifelong Learning for Collective Knowledge Acquisition
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2018
Year: 2018

Lifelong machine learning methods acquire knowledge over a series of consecutive tasks, continually building upon their experience. Current lifelong learning algorithms rely upon a single learning agent that has centralized access to all data. In this paper, we extend the idea of lifelong learning from a single agent to a network of multiple agents that collectively learn a series of tasks. Each agent faces some (potentially unique) set of tasks; the key idea is that knowledge learned from these tasks may benefit other agents trying to learn different (but related) tasks. Our Collective Lifelong Learning Algorithm (CoLLA) provides an efficient way for a network of agents to share their learned knowledge in a distributed and decentralized manner, while preserving the privacy of the locally observed data. Note that a decentralized scheme is a subclass of distributed algorithms where a central server does not exist and in addition to data, computations are also distributed among the agents. We provide theoretical guarantees for robust performance of the algorithm and empirically demonstrate that CoLLA outperforms existing approaches for distributed multi-task learning on a variety of data sets.
An Integrated System for Perception-Driven Autonomy with Modular Robots
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2018
Year: 2018

The theoretical ability of modular robots to reconfigure in response to complex tasks in a priori unknown environments has frequently been cited as an advantage and remains a major motivator for work in the field. We present a modular robot system capable of autonomously completing high-level tasks by reactively reconfiguring to meet the needs of a perceived, a priori unknown environment. The system integrates perception, high-level planning, and modular hardware, and is validated in three hardware demonstrations. Given a high-level task specification, a modular robot autonomously explores an unknown environment, decides when and how to reconfigure, and manipulates objects to complete its task. The system architecture balances distributed mechanical elements with centralized perception, planning, and control. By providing an example of how a modular robot system can be designed to leverage reactive reconfigurability in unknown environments, we have begun to lay the groundwork for modular self-reconfigurable robots to address tasks in the real world.
Technical Report: Sensor-Based Reactive Symbolic Planning in Partially Known Environments
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2018
Year: 2018

This paper considers the problem of completing assemblies of passive objects in nonconvex environments, cluttered with convex obstacles of unknown position, shape and size that satisfy a specific separation assumption. A differential drive robot equipped with a gripper and a LIDAR sensor, capable of perceiving its environment only locally, is used to position the passive objects in a desired configuration. The method combines the virtues of a deliberative planner generating high-level, symbolic commands, with the formal guarantees of convergence and obstacle avoidance of a reactive planner that requires little onboard computation and is used online. The validity of the proposed method is verified both with formal proofs and numerical simulations.
The Multiscale Bowler-Hat Transform for Blood Vessel Enhancement in Retinal Images
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2018
Year: 2018

Enhancement, followed by segmentation, quantification and modelling, of blood vessels in retinal images plays an essential role in computer-aid retinopathy diagnosis. In this paper, we introduce a new vessel enhancement method which is the bowler-hat transform based on mathematical morphology. The proposed method combines different structuring elements to detect innate features of vessel-like structures. We evaluate the proposed method qualitatively and quantitatively, and compare it with the existing, state-of-the-art methods using both synthetic and real datasets. Our results show that the proposed method achieves high-quality vessel-like structure enhancement in both synthetic examples and in clinically relevant retinal images, and is shown to be able to detect fine vessels while remaining robust at junctions.
Convergence Analysis and Design of Multi-block ADMM via Switched Control Theory
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2018
Year: 2018

We consider three challenges in multi-block Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM): building convergence conditions for ADMM with any block (variable) sequence, finding available block sequences to be fit for ADMM, and designing useful parameter controllers for ADMM with unfixed parameters. To address these challenges, we develop a switched control framework for studying multi-block ADMM. First, since ADMM recursively and alternately updates the block-variables, it is converted into a discrete-time switched dynamical system. Second, we study exponential stability and stabilizability of the switched system for linear convergence analysis and design of ADMM by employing switched Lyapunov functions. Moreover, linear matrix inequalities conditions are proposed to ensure convergence of ADMM under arbitrary sequence, to find convergent sequences, and to design the fixed parameters. These conditions are checked and solved by employing semidefinite programming. Numerical experiments further verify the effectiveness of our proposed theories.
Representation Learning on Graphs: Methods and Applications
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2018
Year: 2018

Machine learning on graphs is an important and ubiquitous task with applications ranging from drug design to friendship recommendation in social networks. The primary challenge in this domain is finding a way to represent, or encode, graph structure so that it can be easily exploited by machine learning models. Traditionally, machine learning approaches relied on user-defined heuristics to extract features encoding structural information about a graph (e.g., degree statistics or kernel functions). However, recent years have seen a surge in approaches that automatically learn to encode graph structure into low-dimensional embeddings, using techniques based on deep learning and nonlinear dimensionality reduction. Here we provide a conceptual review of key advancements in this area of representation learning on graphs, including matrix factorization-based methods, random-walk based algorithms, and graph neural networks. We review methods to embed individual nodes as well as approaches to embed entire (sub)graphs. In doing so, we develop a unified framework to describe these recent approaches, and we highlight a number of important applications and directions for future work.
BabelView: Evaluating the Impact of Code Injection Attacks in Mobile Webviews
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2018
Year: 2018

A Webview embeds a full-fledged browser in a mobile application and allows the application to expose a custom interface to JavaScript code. This is a popular technique to build so-called hybrid applications, but it circumvents the usual security model of the browser: any malicious JavaScript code injected into the Webview gains access to the interface and can use it to manipulate the device or exfiltrate sensitive data. In this paper, we present an approach to systematically evaluate the possible impact of code injection attacks against Webviews using static information flow analysis. Our key idea is that we can make reasoning about JavaScript semantics unnecessary by instrumenting the application with a model of possible attacker behavior -- the BabelView. We evaluate our approach on 11,648 apps from various Android marketplaces, finding 2,677 vulnerabilities in 1,663 apps. Taken together, the apps reported as vulnerable have over 835 million installations worldwide. We manually validated a random sample of 66 apps and estimate that our fully automated analysis achieves a precision of 90% at a recall of 66%.
Fine-Grained Endpoint-Driven In-Network Traffic Control for Proactive DDoS Attack Mitigation
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2018
Year: 2018

Volumetric attacks, which overwhelm the bandwidth of a destination, are among the most common DDoS attacks today. Despite considerable effort made by both research and industry, our recent interviews with over 100 potential DDoS victims in over 10 industry segments indicate that today's DDoS prevention is far from perfect. On one hand, few academical proposals have ever been deployed in the Internet; on the other hand, solutions offered by existing DDoS prevention vendors are not a silver bullet to defend against the entire attack spectrum. Guided by such large-scale study of today's DDoS defense, in this paper, we present MiddlePolice, the first readily deployable and proactive DDoS prevention mechanism. We carefully architect MiddlePolice such that it requires no changes from both the Internet core and the network stack of clients, yielding instant deployability in the current Internet architecture. Further, relying on our novel capability feedback mechanism, MiddlePolice is able to enforce destination-driven traffic control so that it guarantees to deliver victim-desired traffic regardless of the attacker strategies. We implement a prototype of MiddlePolice, and demonstrate its feasibility via extensive evaluations in the Internet, hardware testbed and large-scale simulations.
On the Restricted Isometry of the Columnwise Khatri-Rao Product
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2018
Year: 2018

The columnwise Khatri-Rao product of two matrices is an important matrix type, reprising its role as a structured sensing matrix in many fundamental linear inverse problems. Robust signal recovery in such inverse problems is often contingent on proving the restricted isometry property (RIP) of a certain system matrix expressible as a Khatri-Rao product of two matrices. In this work, we analyze the RIP of a generic columnwise Khatri-Rao product matrix by deriving two upper bounds for its $k^{\text{th}}$ order Restricted Isometry Constant ($k$-RIC) for different values of $k$. The first RIC bound is computed in terms of the individual RICs of the input matrices participating in the Khatri-Rao product. The second RIC bound is probabilistic, and is specified in terms of the input matrix dimensions. We show that the Khatri-Rao product of a pair of $m \times n$ sized random matrices comprising independent and identically distributed subgaussian entries satisfies $k$-RIP with arbitrarily high probability, provided $m$ exceeds $O(k \log n)$. Our RIC bounds confirm that the Khatri-Rao product exhibits stronger restricted isometry compared to its constituent matrices for the same RIP order. The proposed RIC bounds are potentially useful in the sample complexity analysis of several sparse recovery problems.