OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
ONTS: "Optima" News Translation System
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2014
Year: 2014

We propose a real-time machine translation system that allows users to select a news category and to translate the related live news articles from Arabic, Czech, Danish, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish into English. The Moses-based system was optimised for the news domain and differs from other available systems in four ways: (1) News items are automatically categorised on the source side, before translation; (2) Named entity translation is optimised by recognising and extracting them on the source side and by re-inserting their translation in the target language, making use of a separate entity repository; (3) News titles are translated with a separate translation system which is optimised for the specific style of news titles; (4) The system was optimised for speed in order to cope with the large volume of daily news articles.
Exploiting generalisation symmetries in accuracy-based learning classifier systems: An initial study
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

Modern learning classifier systems typically exploit a niched genetic algorithm to facilitate rule discovery. When used for reinforcement learning, such rules represent generalisations over the state-action-reward space. Whilst encouraging maximal generality, the niching can potentially hinder the formation of generalisations in the state space which are symmetrical, or very similar, over different actions. This paper introduces the use of rules which contain multiple actions, maintaining accuracy and reward metrics for each action. It is shown that problem symmetries can be exploited, improving performance, whilst not degrading performance when symmetries are reduced.
Removing Dynamic Type Tests with Context-Driven Basic Block Versioning
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2014
Year: 2014

Dynamic typing is an important feature of dynamic programming languages. Primitive operators such as those for performing arithmetic and comparisons typically operate on a wide variety of in put value types, and as such, must internally implement some form of dynamic type dispatch and type checking. Removing such type tests is important for an efficient implementation. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of a novel approach to reducing the number of dynamically executed type tests called context-driven basic block versioning. This simple technique clones and specializes basic blocks in such a way as to allow the compiler to accumulate type information while machine code is generated, without a separate type analysis pass. The accumulated information allows the removal of some redundant type tests, particularly in performance-critical paths. We have implemented intraprocedural context-driven basic block versioning in a JavaScript JIT compiler. For comparison, we have also implemented a classical flow-based type analysis operating on the same concrete types. Our results show that basic block versioning performs better on most benchmarks and removes a large fraction of type tests at the expense of a moderate code size increase. We believe that this technique offers a good tradeoff between implementation complexity and performance, and is suitable for integration in production JIT compilers.
Rate-Distortion for Ranking with Incomplete Information
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

We study the rate-distortion relationship in the set of permutations endowed with the Kendall Tau metric and the Chebyshev metric. Our study is motivated by the application of permutation rate-distortion to the average-case and worst-case analysis of algorithms for ranking with incomplete information and approximate sorting algorithms. For the Kendall Tau metric we provide bounds for small, medium, and large distortion regimes, while for the Chebyshev metric we present bounds that are valid for all distortions and are especially accurate for small distortions. In addition, for the Chebyshev metric, we provide a construction for covering codes.
Achieving Low-Complexity Maximum-Likelihood Detection for the 3D MIMO Code
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

The 3D MIMO code is a robust and efficient space-time block code (STBC) for the distributed MIMO broadcasting but suffers from high maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding complexity. In this paper, we first analyze some properties of the 3D MIMO code to show that the 3D MIMO code is fast-decodable. It is proved that the ML decoding performance can be achieved with a complexity of O(M^{4.5}) instead of O(M^8) in quasi static channel with M-ary square QAM modulations. Consequently, we propose a simplified ML decoder exploiting the unique properties of 3D MIMO code. Simulation results show that the proposed simplified ML decoder can achieve much lower processing time latency compared to the classical sphere decoder with Schnorr-Euchner enumeration.
An iterative merging placement algorithm for the fixed-outline floorplanning
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2014
Year: 2014

Given a set of rectangular modules with fixed area and variable dimensions, and a fixed rectangular circuit. The placement of Fixed-Outline Floorplanning with Soft Modules (FOFSM) aims to determine the dimensions and position of each module on the circuit. We present a two-stage Iterative Merging Placement (IMP) algorithm for the FOFSM with zero deadspace constraint. The first stage iteratively merges two modules with the least area into a composite module to achieve a final composite module, and builds up a slicing tree in a bottom-up hierarchy. The second stage recursively determines the relative relationship (left-right or top-bottom) of the sibling modules in the slicing tree in a top-down hierarchy, and the dimensions and position of each leaf module are determined automatically. Compared with zero-dead-space (ZDS) algorithm, the only algorithm guarantees a feasible layout under some condition, we prove that the proposed IMP could construct a feasible layout under a more relaxed condition. Besides, IMP is more scalable in handling FOFSM considering the wirelength or without the zero deadspace constraint.
Capacity bounds for MIMO microwave backhaul links affected by phase noise
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

We present bounds and a closed-form high-SNR expression for the capacity of multiple-antenna systems affected by Wiener phase noise. Our results are developed for the scenario where a single oscillator drives all the radio-frequency circuitries at each transceiver (common oscillator setup), the input signal is subject to a peak-power constraint, and the channel matrix is deterministic. This scenario is relevant for line-of-sight multiple-antenna microwave backhaul links with sufficiently small antenna spacing at the transceivers. For the 2 by 2 multiple-antenna case, for a Wiener phase-noise process with standard deviation equal to 6 degrees, and at the medium/high SNR values at which microwave backhaul links operate, the upper bound reported in the paper exhibits a 3 dB gap from a lower bound obtained using 64-QAM. Furthermore, in this SNR regime the closed-form high-SNR expression is shown to be accurate.
Cyclic Interference Alignment and Cancellation in 3-User X-Networks with Minimal Backhaul
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

We consider the problem of Cyclic Interference Alignment (IA) on the 3-user X-network and show that it is infeasible to exactly achieve the upper bound of $\frac{K^2}{2K-1}=\frac{9}{5}$ degrees of freedom for the lower bound of n=5 signalling dimensions and K=3 user-pairs. This infeasibility goes beyond the problem of common eigenvectors in invariant subspaces within spatial IA. In order to gain non-asymptotic feasibility with minimal intervention, we first investigate an alignment strategy that enables IA by feedforwarding a subset of messages with minimal rate. In a second step, we replace the proposed feedforward strategy by an analogous Cyclic Interference Alignment and Cancellation scheme with a backhaul network on the receiver side and also by a dual Cyclic Interference Neutralization scheme with a backhaul network on the transmitter side.
The Complexity of Partial-observation Stochastic Parity Games With Finite-memory Strategies
Venue: arXiv cs.LO 2014
Year: 2014

We consider two-player partial-observation stochastic games on finite-state graphs where player 1 has partial observation and player 2 has perfect observation. The winning condition we study are ω-regular conditions specified as parity objectives. The qualitative-analysis problem given a partial-observation stochastic game and a parity objective asks whether there is a strategy to ensure that the objective is satisfied with probability~1 (resp. positive probability). These qualtitative-analysis problems are known to be undecidable. However in many applications the relevant question is the existence of finite-memory strategies, and the qualitative-analysis problems under finite-memory strategies was recently shown to be decidable in 2EXPTIME. We improve the complexity and show that the qualitative-analysis problems for partial-observation stochastic parity games under finite-memory strategies are EXPTIME-complete; and also establish optimal (exponential) memory bounds for finite-memory strategies required for qualitative analysis.
Learning Language from a Large (Unannotated) Corpus
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2014
Year: 2014

A novel approach to the fully automated, unsupervised extraction of dependency grammars and associated syntax-to-semantic-relationship mappings from large text corpora is described. The suggested approach builds on the authors' prior work with the Link Grammar, RelEx and OpenCog systems, as well as on a number of prior papers and approaches from the statistical language learning literature. If successful, this approach would enable the mining of all the information needed to power a natural language comprehension and generation system, directly from a large, unannotated corpus.
On the Qualitative Comparison of Decisions Having Positive and Negative Features
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2014
Year: 2014

Making a decision is often a matter of listing and comparing positive and negative arguments. In such cases, the evaluation scale for decisions should be considered bipolar, that is, negative and positive values should be explicitly distinguished. That is what is done, for example, in Cumulative Prospect Theory. However, contraryto the latter framework that presupposes genuine numerical assessments, human agents often decide on the basis of an ordinal ranking of the pros and the cons, and by focusing on the most salient arguments. In other terms, the decision process is qualitative as well as bipolar. In this article, based on a bipolar extension of possibility theory, we define and axiomatically characterize several decision rules tailored for the joint handling of positive and negative arguments in an ordinal setting. The simplest rules can be viewed as extensions of the maximin and maximax criteria to the bipolar case, and consequently suffer from poor decisive power. More decisive rules that refine the former are also proposed. These refinements agree both with principles of efficiency and with the spirit of order-of-magnitude reasoning, that prevails in qualitative decision theory. The most refined decision rule uses leximin rankings of the pros and the cons, and the ideas of counting arguments of equal strength and cancelling pros by cons. It is shown to come down to a special case of Cumulative Prospect Theory, and to subsume the Take the Best heuristic studied by cognitive psychologists.
Eliciting Single-Peaked Preferences Using Comparison Queries
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2014
Year: 2014

Voting is a general method for aggregating the preferences of multiple agents. Each agent ranks all the possible alternatives, and based on this, an aggregate ranking of the alternatives (or at least a winning alternative) is produced. However, when there are many alternatives, it is impractical to simply ask agents to report their complete preferences. Rather, the agents preferences, or at least the relevant parts thereof, need to be elicited. This is done by asking the agents a (hopefully small) number of simple queries about their preferences, such as comparison queries, which ask an agent to compare two of the alternatives. Prior work on preference elicitation in voting has focused on the case of unrestricted preferences. It has been shown that in this setting, it is sometimes necessary to ask each agent (almost) as many queries as would be required to determine an arbitrary ranking of the alternatives. In contrast, in this paper, we focus on single-peaked preferences. We show that such preferences can be elicited using only a linear number of comparison queries, if either the order with respect to which preferences are single-peaked is known, or at least one other agents complete preferences are known. We show that using a sublinear number of queries does not suffice. We also consider the case of cardinally single-peaked preferences. For this case, we show that if the alternatives cardinal positions are known, then an agents preferences can be elicited using only a logarithmic number of queries; however, we also show that if the cardinal positions are not known, then a sublinear number of queries does not suffice. We present experimental results for all elicitation algorithms. We also consider the problem of only eliciting enough information to determine the aggregate ranking, and show that even for this more modest objective, a sublinear number of queries per agent does not suffice for known ordinal or unknown cardinal positions. Finally, we discuss whether and how these techniques can be applied when preferences are almost single-peaked.
Mechanisms for Making Crowds Truthful
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2014
Year: 2014

We consider schemes for obtaining truthful reports on a common but hidden signal from large groups of rational, self-interested agents. One example are online feedback mechanisms, where users provide observations about the quality of a product or service so that other users can have an accurate idea of what quality they can expect. However, (i) providing such feedback is costly, and (ii) there are many motivations for providing incorrect feedback. Both problems can be addressed by reward schemes which (i) cover the cost of obtaining and reporting feedback, and (ii) maximize the expected reward of a rational agent who reports truthfully. We address the design of such incentive-compatible rewards for feedback generated in environments with pure adverse selection. Here, the correlation between the true knowledge of an agent and her beliefs regarding the likelihoods of reports of other agents can be exploited to make honest reporting a Nash equilibrium. In this paper we extend existing methods for designing incentive-compatible rewards by also considering collusion. We analyze different scenarios, where, for example, some or all of the agents collude. For each scenario we investigate whether a collusion-resistant, incentive-compatible reward scheme exists, and use automated mechanism design to specify an algorithm for deriving an efficient reward mechanism.
Learning Bayesian Network Equivalence Classes with Ant Colony Optimization
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2014
Year: 2014

Bayesian networks are a useful tool in the representation of uncertain knowledge. This paper proposes a new algorithm called ACO-E, to learn the structure of a Bayesian network. It does this by conducting a search through the space of equivalence classes of Bayesian networks using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). To this end, two novel extensions of traditional ACO techniques are proposed and implemented. Firstly, multiple types of moves are allowed. Secondly, moves can be given in terms of indices that are not based on construction graph nodes. The results of testing show that ACO-E performs better than a greedy search and other state-of-the-art and metaheuristic algorithms whilst searching in the space of equivalence classes.
Planning over Chain Causal Graphs for Variables with Domains of Size 5 Is NP-Hard
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2014
Year: 2014

Recently, considerable focus has been given to the problem of determining the boundary between tractable and intractable planning problems. In this paper, we study the complexity of planning in the class C_n of planning problems, characterized by unary operators and directed path causal graphs. Although this is one of the simplest forms of causal graphs a planning problem can have, we show that planning is intractable for C_n (unless P = NP), even if the domains of state variables have bounded size. In particular, we show that plan existence for C_n^k is NP-hard for k>=5 by reduction from CNFSAT. Here, k denotes the upper bound on the size of the state variable domains. Our result reduces the complexity gap for the class C_n^k to cases k=3 and k=4 only, since C_n^2 is known to be tractable.
Message-Based Web Service Composition, Integrity Constraints, and Planning under Uncertainty: A New Connection
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2014
Year: 2014

Thanks to recent advances, AI Planning has become the underlying technique for several applications. Figuring prominently among these is automated Web Service Composition (WSC) at the "capability" level, where services are described in terms of preconditions and effects over ontological concepts. A key issue in addressing WSC as planning is that ontologies are not only formal vocabularies; they also axiomatize the possible relationships between concepts. Such axioms correspond to what has been termed "integrity constraints" in the actions and change literature, and applying a web service is essentially a belief update operation. The reasoning required for belief update is known to be harder than reasoning in the ontology itself. The support for belief update is severely limited in current planning tools. Our first contribution consists in identifying an interesting special case of WSC which is both significant and more tractable. The special case, which we term "forward effects", is characterized by the fact that every ramification of a web service application involves at least one new constant generated as output by the web service. We show that, in this setting, the reasoning required for belief update simplifies to standard reasoning in the ontology itself. This relates to, and extends, current notions of "message-based" WSC, where the need for belief update is removed by a strong (often implicit or informal) assumption of "locality" of the individual messages. We clarify the computational properties of the forward effects case, and point out a strong relation to standard notions of planning under uncertainty, suggesting that effective tools for the latter can be successfully adapted to address the former. Furthermore, we identify a significant sub-case, named "strictly forward effects", where an actual compilation into planning under uncertainty exists. This enables us to exploit off-the-shelf planning tools to solve message-based WSC in a general form that involves powerful ontologies, and requires reasoning about partial matches between concepts. We provide empirical evidence that this approach may be quite effective, using Conformant-FF as the underlying planner.
Relaxed Survey Propagation for The Weighted Maximum Satisfiability Problem
Venue: arXiv cs.AI 2014
Year: 2014

The survey propagation (SP) algorithm has been shown to work well on large instances of the random 3-SAT problem near its phase transition. It was shown that SP estimates marginals over covers that represent clusters of solutions. The SP-y algorithm generalizes SP to work on the maximum satisfiability (Max-SAT) problem, but the cover interpretation of SP does not generalize to SP-y. In this paper, we formulate the relaxed survey propagation (RSP) algorithm, which extends the SP algorithm to apply to the weighted Max-SAT problem. We show that RSP has an interpretation of estimating marginals over covers violating a set of clauses with minimal weight. This naturally generalizes the cover interpretation of SP. Empirically, we show that RSP outperforms SP-y and other state-of-the-art Max-SAT solvers on random Max-SAT instances. RSP also outperforms state-of-the-art weighted Max-SAT solvers on random weighted Max-SAT instances.
Optimal CSMA-based Wireless Communication with Worst-case Delay and Non-uniform Sizes
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2014
Year: 2014

Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) protocols have been shown to reach the full capacity region for data communication in wireless networks, with polynomial complexity. However, current literature achieves the throughput optimality with an exponential delay scaling with the network size, even in a simplified scenario for transmission jobs with uniform sizes. Although CSMA protocols with order-optimal average delay have been proposed for specific topologies, no existing work can provide worst-case delay guarantee for each job in general network settings, not to mention the case when the jobs have non-uniform lengths while the throughput optimality is still targeted. In this paper, we tackle on this issue by proposing a two-timescale CSMA-based data communication protocol with dynamic decisions on rate control, link scheduling, job transmission and dropping in polynomial complexity. Through rigorous analysis, we demonstrate that the proposed protocol can achieve a throughput utility arbitrarily close to its offline optima for jobs with non-uniform sizes and worst-case delay guarantees, with a tradeoff of longer maximum allowable delay.
Reweighted l1-norm Penalized LMS for Sparse Channel Estimation and Its Analysis
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2014
Year: 2014

A new reweighted l1-norm penalized least mean square (LMS) algorithm for sparse channel estimation is proposed and studied in this paper. Since standard LMS algorithm does not take into account the sparsity information about the channel impulse response (CIR), sparsity-aware modifications of the LMS algorithm aim at outperforming the standard LMS by introducing a penalty term to the standard LMS cost function which forces the solution to be sparse. Our reweighted l1-norm penalized LMS algorithm introduces in addition a reweighting of the CIR coefficient estimates to promote a sparse solution even more and approximate l0-pseudo-norm closer. We provide in depth quantitative analysis of the reweighted l1-norm penalized LMS algorithm. An expression for the excess mean square error (MSE) of the algorithm is also derived which suggests that under the right conditions, the reweighted l1-norm penalized LMS algorithm outperforms the standard LMS, which is expected. However, our quantitative analysis also answers the question of what is the maximum sparsity level in the channel for which the reweighted l1-norm penalized LMS algorithm is better than the standard LMS. Simulation results showing the better performance of the reweighted l1-norm penalized LMS algorithm compared to other existing LMS-type algorithms are given.