OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Locally Estimating Core Numbers
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2014
Year: 2014

Graphs are a powerful way to model interactions and relationships in data from a wide variety of application domains. In this setting, entities represented by vertices at the "center" of the graph are often more important than those associated with vertices on the "fringes". For example, central nodes tend to be more critical in the spread of information or disease and play an important role in clustering/community formation. Identifying such "core" vertices has recently received additional attention in the context of {\em network experiments}, which analyze the response when a random subset of vertices are exposed to a treatment (e.g. inoculation, free product samples, etc). Specifically, the likelihood of having many central vertices in any exposure subset can have a significant impact on the experiment. We focus on using $k$-cores and core numbers to measure the extent to which a vertex is central in a graph. Existing algorithms for computing the core number of a vertex require the entire graph as input, an unrealistic scenario in many real world applications. Moreover, in the context of network experiments, the subgraph induced by the treated vertices is only known in a probabilistic sense. We introduce a new method for estimating the core number based only on the properties of the graph within a region of radius $δ$ around the vertex, and prove an asymptotic error bound of our estimator on random graphs. Further, we empirically validate the accuracy of our estimator for small values of $δ$ on a representative corpus of real data sets. Finally, we evaluate the impact of improved local estimation on an open problem in network experimentation posed by Ugander et al.
From DC-Biased to DC-Informative Optical OFDM
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

We propose a novel modulation scheme for intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) based optical communication system employing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). This method utilizes the DC-bias, which typically is discarded at the receiver-end, to carry information to achieve higher power efficiency. By formulating and solving a convex optimization problem, a constellation in high dimensional space is designed offline for the input of the transmitter-side inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) block. We point out that one can choose partial or full DC power for information transmission. Under the condition that the spectrum efficiency is fixed and attainable, this method bears notable power gain over traditional DC-biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM).
A Hardware-oriented Algorithm for Complex-valued Constant Matrix-vector Multiplication
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper we present a hardware-oriented algorithm for constant matrix-vector product calculating, when the all elements of vector and matrix are complex numbers. The proposed algorithm versus the naive method of analogous calculations drastically reduces the number of multipliers required for FPGA implementation of complex-valued constant matrix-vector multiplication.If the fully parallel hardware implementation of naive (schoolbook) method for complex-valued matrix-vector multiplication requires 4MN multipliers, 2M N-inputs adders and 2MN two-input adders, the proposed algorithm requires only 3N(M+1)/2 multipliers and 3M(N+2)+1,5N+2 two-input adders and 3(M+1) N/2-input adders.
Notes on using Determinantal Point Processes for Clustering with Applications to Text Clustering
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we compare three initialization schemes for the KMEANS clustering algorithm: 1) random initialization (KMEANSRAND), 2) KMEANS++, and 3) KMEANSD++. Both KMEANSRAND and KMEANS++ have a major that the value of k needs to be set by the user of the algorithms. (Kang 2013) recently proposed a novel use of determinantal point processes for sampling the initial centroids for the KMEANS algorithm (we call it KMEANSD++). They, however, do not provide any evaluation establishing that KMEANSD++ is better than other algorithms. In this paper, we show that the performance of KMEANSD++ is comparable to KMEANS++ (both of which are better than KMEANSRAND) with KMEANSD++ having an additional that it can automatically approximate the value of k.
Compressed Relaying for Two-Way Relay Networks with Correlated Sources
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

In this letter, a compressed relaying scheme via Huffman and physical-layer network coding (HPNC) is proposed for two-way relay networks with correlated sources (TWRN-CS). In the HPNC scheme, both sources first transmit the correlated raw source messages to the relay simultaneously. The relay performs physical-layer network coding (PNC) on the received symbols, compresses the PNC-coded symbols using Huffman coding, and broadcasts the compressed symbols to both source nodes. Then, each source decodes the other source's messages by using its own messages as side information. Compression rate and block error rate (BLER) of the proposed scheme are analyzed. Simulation results demonstrate that the HPNC scheme can effectively improve the network throughput, and meanwhile, achieve the superior BLER performance compared with the conventional non-compressed relaying scheme in TWRN-CS.
Directional Bilateral Filters
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

We propose a bilateral filter with a locally controlled domain kernel for directional edge-preserving smoothing. Traditional bilateral filters use a range kernel, which is responsible for edge preservation, and a fixed domain kernel that performs smoothing. Our intuition is that orientation and anisotropy of image structures should be incorporated into the domain kernel while smoothing. For this purpose, we employ an oriented Gaussian domain kernel locally controlled by a structure tensor. The oriented domain kernel combined with a range kernel forms the directional bilateral filter. The two kernels assist each other in effectively suppressing the influence of the outliers while smoothing. To find the optimal parameters of the directional bilateral filter, we propose the use of Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE). We test the capabilities of the kernels separately as well as together, first on synthetic images, and then on real endoscopic images. The directional bilateral filter has better denoising performance than the Gaussian bilateral filter at various noise levels in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR).
The Approximate Optimality of Simple Schedules for Half-Duplex Multi-Relay Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

In ISIT'12 Brahma, Özgür and Fragouli conjectured that in a half-duplex diamond relay network (a Gaussian noise network without a direct source-destination link and with $N$ non-interfering relays) an approximately optimal relay scheduling (achieving the cut-set upper bound to within a constant gap uniformly over all channel gains) exists with at most $N+1$ active states (only $N+1$ out of the $2^N$ possible relay listen-transmit configurations have a strictly positive probability). Such relay scheduling policies are said to be simple. In ITW'13 we conjectured that simple relay policies are optimal for any half-duplex Gaussian multi-relay network, that is, simple schedules are not a consequence of the diamond network's sparse topology. In this paper we formally prove the conjecture beyond Gaussian networks. In particular, for any memoryless half-duplex $N$-relay network with independent noises and for which independent inputs are approximately optimal in the cut-set upper bound, an optimal schedule exists with at most $N+1$ active states. The key step of our proof is to write the minimum of a submodular function by means of its Lovász extension and use the greedy algorithm for submodular polyhedra to highlight structural properties of the optimal solution. This, together with the saddle-point property of min-max problems and the existence of optimal basic feasible solutions in linear programs, proves the claim.
A method for context-based adaptive QRS clustering in real-time
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2014
Year: 2014

Continuous follow-up of heart condition through long-term electrocardiogram monitoring is an invaluable tool for diagnosing some cardiac arrhythmias. In such context, providing tools for fast locating alterations of normal conduction patterns is mandatory and still remains an open issue. This work presents a real-time method for adaptive clustering QRS complexes from multilead ECG signals that provides the set of QRS morphologies that appear during an ECG recording. The method processes the QRS complexes sequentially, grouping them into a dynamic set of clusters based on the information content of the temporal context. The clusters are represented by templates which evolve over time and adapt to the QRS morphology changes. Rules to create, merge and remove clusters are defined along with techniques for noise detection in order to avoid their proliferation. To cope with beat misalignment, Derivative Dynamic Time Warping is used. The proposed method has been validated against the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database and the AHA ECG Database showing a global purity of 98.56% and 99.56%, respectively. Results show that our proposal not only provides better results than previous offline solutions but also fulfills real-time requirements.
Efficient Key Generation for Dynamic Blom's Scheme
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we propose an efficient key management scheme by generating new public and private keys in the Blom scheme. We also focus on making this scheme dynamic by randomly changing the secret key that is generated by the base station and we propose the use of the mesh array for matrix multiplication for reducing the computation overhead.
Modified Mel Filter Bank to Compute MFCC of Subsampled Speech
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2014
Year: 2014

Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) are the most popularly used speech features in most speech and speaker recognition applications. In this work, we propose a modified Mel filter bank to extract MFCCs from subsampled speech. We also propose a stronger metric which effectively captures the correlation between MFCCs of original speech and MFCC of resampled speech. It is found that the proposed method of filter bank construction performs distinguishably well and gives recognition performance on resampled speech close to recognition accuracies on original speech.
Concurrency Models with Causality and Events as Psi-calculi
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2014
Year: 2014

Psi-calculi are a parametric framework for nominal calculi, where standard calculi are found as instances, like the pi-calculus, or the cryptographic spi-calculus and applied-pi. Psi-calculi have an interleaving operational semantics, with a strong foundation on the theory of nominal sets and process algebras. Much of the expressive power of psi-calculi comes from their logical part, i.e., assertions, conditions, and entailment, which are left quite open thus accommodating a wide range of logics. We are interested in how this expressiveness can deal with event-based models of concurrency. We thus take the popular prime event structures model and give an encoding into an instance of psi-calculi. We also take the recent and expressive model of Dynamic Condition Response Graphs (in which event structures are strictly included) and give an encoding into another corresponding instance of psi-calculi. The encodings that we achieve look rather natural and intuitive. Additional results about these encodings give us more confidence in their correctness.
The Boolean Algebra of Cubical Areas as a Tensor Product in the Category of Semilattices with Zero
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper we describe a model of concurrency together with an algebraic structure reflecting the parallel composition. For the sake of simplicity we restrict to linear concurrent programs i.e. the ones with no loops nor branching. Such programs are given a semantics using cubical areas. Such a semantics is said to be geometric. The collection of all these cubical areas enjoys a structure of tensor product in the category of semi-lattice with zero. These results naturally extend to fully fledged concurrent programs up to some technical tricks.
Learning graphical models from the Glauber dynamics
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper we consider the problem of learning undirected graphical models from data generated according to the Glauber dynamics. The Glauber dynamics is a Markov chain that sequentially updates individual nodes (variables) in a graphical model and it is frequently used to sample from the stationary distribution (to which it converges given sufficient time). Additionally, the Glauber dynamics is a natural dynamical model in a variety of settings. This work deviates from the standard formulation of graphical model learning in the literature, where one assumes access to i.i.d. samples from the distribution. Much of the research on graphical model learning has been directed towards finding algorithms with low computational cost. As the main result of this work, we establish that the problem of reconstructing binary pairwise graphical models is computationally tractable when we observe the Glauber dynamics. Specifically, we show that a binary pairwise graphical model on $p$ nodes with maximum degree $d$ can be learned in time $f(d)p^2\log p$, for a function $f(d)$, using nearly the information-theoretic minimum number of samples.
Two Novel Defenses against Motion-Based Keystroke Inference Attacks
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

Nowadays smartphones come embedded with multiple motion sensors, such as an accelerometer, a gyroscope and an orientation sensor. With these sensors, apps can gather more information and therefore provide end users with more functionality. However, these sensors also introduce the potential risk of leaking a user's private information because apps can access these sensors without requiring security permissions. By monitoring a device's motion, a malicious app may be able to infer sensitive information about the owner of the device. For example, related work has shown that sensitive information entered by a user on a device's touchscreen, such as numerical PINs or passwords, can be inferred from accelerometer and gyroscope data. In this paper, we study these motion-based keystroke inference attacks to determine what information they need to succeed. Based on this study, we propose two novel approaches to defend against keystroke inference attacks: 1) Reducing sensor data accuracy; 2) Random keyboard layout generation. We present the design and the implementation of these two defences on the Android platform and show how they significantly reduce the accuracy of keystroke inference attacks. We also conduct multiple user studies to evaluate the usability and feasibility of these two defences. Finally, we determine the impact of the defences on apps that have legitimate reasons to access motion sensors and show that the impact is negligible.
Enter Sandbox: Android Sandbox Comparison
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

Expecting the shipment of 1 billion Android devices in 2017, cyber criminals have naturally extended their vicious activities towards Google's mobile operating system. With an estimated number of 700 new Android applications released every day, keeping control over malware is an increasingly challenging task. In recent years, a vast number of static and dynamic code analysis platforms for analyzing Android applications and making decision regarding their maliciousness have been introduced in academia and in the commercial world. These platforms differ heavily in terms of feature support and application properties being analyzed. In this paper, we give an overview of the state-of-the-art dynamic code analysis platforms for Android and evaluate their effectiveness with samples from known malware corpora as well as known Android bugs like Master Key. Our results indicate a low level of diversity in analysis platforms resulting from code reuse that leaves the evaluated systems vulnerable to evasion. Furthermore the Master Key bugs could be exploited by malware to hide malicious behavior from the sandboxes.
Code Injection Attacks on HTML5-based Mobile Apps
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2014
Year: 2014

HTML5-based mobile apps become more and more popular, mostly because they are much easier to be ported across different mobile platforms than native apps. HTML5-based apps are implemented using the standard web technologies, including HTML5, JavaScript and CSS; they depend on some middlewares, such as PhoneGap, to interact with the underlying OS. Knowing that JavaScript is subject to code injection attacks, we have conducted a systematic study on HTML5-based mobile apps, trying to evaluate whether it is safe to rely on the web technologies for mobile app development. Our discoveries are quite surprising. We found out that if HTML5-based mobile apps become popular--it seems to go that direction based on the current projection--many of the things that we normally do today may become dangerous, including reading from 2D barcodes, scanning Wi-Fi access points, playing MP4 videos, pairing with Bluetooth devices, etc. This paper describes how HTML5-based apps can become vulnerable, how attackers can exploit their vulnerabilities through a variety of channels, and what damage can be achieved by the attackers. In addition to demonstrating the attacks through example apps, we have studied 186 PhoneGap plugins, used by apps to achieve a variety of functionalities, and we found that 11 are vulnerable. We also found two real HTML5-based apps that are vulnerable to the attacks.
Efficient optimisation of structures using tabu search
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2014
Year: 2014

This paper presents a novel approach to the optimisation of structures using a Tabu search (TS) method. TS is a metaheuristic which is used to guide local search methods towards a globally optimal solution by using flexible memory cycles of differing time spans. Results are presented for the well established ten bar truss problem and compared to results published in the literature. In the first example a truss is optimised to minimise mass and the results compared to results obtained using an alternative TS implementation. In the second example, the problem has multiple objectives that are compounded into a single objective function value using game theory. In general the results demonstrate that the TS method is capable of solving structural optimisation problems at least as efficiently as other numerical optimisation approaches.
Sub-threshold CMOS Spiking Neuron Circuit Design for Navigation Inspired by C. elegans Chemotaxis
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

We demonstrate a spiking neural network for navigation motivated by the chemotaxis network of Caenorhabditis elegans. Our network uses information regarding temporal gradients in the tracking variable's concentration to make navigational decisions. The gradient information is determined by mimicking the underlying mechanisms of the ASE neurons of C. elegans. Simulations show that our model is able to forage and track a target set-point in extremely noisy environments. We develop a VLSI implementation for the main gradient detector neurons, which could be integrated with standard comparator circuitry to develop a robust circuit for navigation and contour tracking.
Adaptive Molecule Transmission Rate for Diffusion Based Molecular Communication
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, a simple memory limited transmitter for molecular communication is proposed, in which information is encoded in the diffusion rate of the molecules. Taking advantage of memory, the proposed transmitter reduces the ISI problem by properly adjusting its diffusion rate. The error probability of the proposed scheme is derived and the result is compared with the lower bound on error probability of the optimum transmitter. It is shown that the performance of introduced transmitter is near optimal (under certain simplifications). Simplicity is the key feature of the presented communication system: the transmitter follows a simple rule, the receiver is a simple threshold decoder and only one type of molecule is used to convey the information.
Using synchronous Boolean networks to model several phenomena of collective behavior
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2014
Year: 2014

In this paper, we propose an approach for modeling and analysis of a number of phenomena of collective behavior. By collectives we mean multi-agent systems that transition from one state to another at discrete moments of time. The behavior of a member of a collective (agent) is called conforming if the opinion of this agent at current time moment conforms to the opinion of some other agents at the previous time moment. We presume that at each moment of time every agent makes a decision by choosing from the set {0,1} (where 1-decision corresponds to action and 0-decision corresponds to inaction). In our approach we model collective behavior with synchronous Boolean networks. We presume that in a network there can be agents that act at every moment of time. Such agents are called instigators. Also there can be agents that never act. Such agents are called loyalists. Agents that are neither instigators nor loyalists are called simple agents. We study two combinatorial problems. The first problem is to find a disposition of instigators that in several time moments transforms a network from a state where a majority of simple agents are inactive to a state with a majority of active agents. The second problem is to find a disposition of loyalists that returns the network to a state with a majority of inactive agents. Similar problems are studied for networks in which simple agents demonstrate the contrary to conforming behavior that we call anticonforming. We obtained several theoretical results regarding the behavior of collectives of agents with conforming or anticonforming behavior. In computational experiments we solved the described problems for randomly generated networks with several hundred vertices. We reduced corresponding combinatorial problems to the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) and used modern SAT solvers to solve the instances obtained.
Latent Feature Based FM Model For Rating Prediction
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2014
Year: 2014

Rating Prediction is a basic problem in Recommender System, and one of the most widely used method is Factorization Machines(FM). However, traditional matrix factorization methods fail to utilize the benefit of implicit feedback, which has been proved to be important in Rating Prediction problem. In this work, we consider a specific situation, movie rating prediction, where we assume that watching history has a big influence on his/her rating behavior on an item. We introduce two models, Latent Dirichlet Allocation(LDA) and word2vec, both of which perform state-of-the-art results in training latent features. Based on that, we propose two feature based models. One is the Topic-based FM Model which provides the implicit feedback to the matrix factorization. The other is the Vector-based FM Model which expresses the order info of watching history. Empirical results on three datasets demonstrate that our method performs better than the baseline model and confirm that Vector-based FM Model usually works better as it contains the order info.