OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Protest Activity Detection and Perceived Violence Estimation from Social Media Images
Venue: arXiv cs.MM 2017
Year: 2017

We develop a novel visual model which can recognize protesters, describe their activities by visual attributes and estimate the level of perceived violence in an image. Studies of social media and protests use natural language processing to track how individuals use hashtags and links, often with a focus on those items' diffusion. These approaches, however, may not be effective in fully characterizing actual real-world protests (e.g., violent or peaceful) or estimating the demographics of participants (e.g., age, gender, and race) and their emotions. Our system characterizes protests along these dimensions. We have collected geotagged tweets and their images from 2013-2017 and analyzed multiple major protest events in that period. A multi-task convolutional neural network is employed in order to automatically classify the presence of protesters in an image and predict its visual attributes, perceived violence and exhibited emotions. We also release the UCLA Protest Image Dataset, our novel dataset of 40,764 images (11,659 protest images and hard negatives) with various annotations of visual attributes and sentiments. Using this dataset, we train our model and demonstrate its effectiveness. We also present experimental results from various analysis on geotagged image data in several prevalent protest events. Our dataset will be made accessible at https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/jjoo/mm-protest/.
Colour Terms: a Categorisation Model Inspired by Visual Cortex Neurons
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2017
Year: 2017

Although it seems counter-intuitive, categorical colours do not exist as external physical entities but are very much the product of our brains. Our cortical machinery segments the world and associate objects to specific colour terms, which is not only convenient for communication but also increases the efficiency of visual processing by reducing the dimensionality of input scenes. Although the neural substrate for this phenomenon is unknown, a recent study of cortical colour processing has discovered a set of neurons that are isoresponsive to stimuli in the shape of 3D-ellipsoidal surfaces in colour-opponent space. We hypothesise that these neurons might help explain the underlying mechanisms of colour naming in the visual cortex. Following this, we propose a biologically-inspired colour naming model where each colour term - e.g. red, green, blue, yellow, etc. - is represented through an ellipsoid in 3D colour-opponent space. This paradigm is also supported by previous psychophysical colour categorisation experiments whose results resemble such shapes. "Belongingness" of each pixel to different colour categories is computed by a non-linear sigmoidal logistic function. The final colour term for a given pixel is calculated by a maximum pooling mechanism. The simplicity of our model allows its parameters to be learnt from a handful of segmented images. It also offers a straightforward extension to include further colour terms. Additionally, ellipsoids of proposed model can adapt to image contents offering a dynamical solution in order to address phenomenon of colour constancy. Our results on the Munsell chart and two datasets of real-world images show an overall improvement comparing to state-of-the-art algorithms.
Dopamine modulation via memristive schematic
Venue: arXiv cs.ET 2017
Year: 2017

In this technical report we present novel results of the dopamine neuromodulation inspired modulation of a polyaniline (PANI) memristive device excitatory learning STDP. Results presented in this work are of two experiments setup computer simulation and physical prototype experiments. We present physical prototype of inhibitory learning or iSTDP as well as the results of iSTDP learning.
Entropy-based Prediction of Network Protocols in the Forensic Analysis of DNS Tunnels
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2017
Year: 2017

DNS tunneling techniques are often used for malicious purposes but network security mechanisms have struggled to detect these. Network forensic analysis has thus been used but has proved slow and effort intensive as Network Forensics Analysis Tools struggle to deal with undocumented or new network tunneling techniques. In this paper we present a method to aid forensic analysis through automating the inference of protocols tunneled within DNS tunneling techniques. We analyze the internal packet structure of DNS tunneling techniques and characterize the information entropy of different network protocols and their DNS tunneled equivalents. From this, we present our protocol prediction method that uses entropy distribution averaging. Finally we apply our method on a dataset to measure its performance and show that it has a prediction accuracy of 75%. Our method also preserves privacy as it does not parse the actual tunneled content, rather it only calculates the information entropy.
Reactive User Behavior and Mobility Models
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2017
Year: 2017

In this paper, we present a set of simulation models to more realistically mimic the behaviour of users reading messages. We propose a User Behaviour Model, where a simulated user reacts to a message by a flexible set of possible reactions (e.g. ignore, read, like, save, etc.) and a mobility-based reaction (visit a place, run away from danger, etc.). We describe our models and their implementation in OMNeT++. We strongly believe that these models will significantly contribute to the state of the art of simulating realistically opportunistic networks.
Weld: Rethinking the Interface Between Data-Intensive Applications
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2017
Year: 2017

Data analytics applications combine multiple functions from different libraries and frameworks. Even when each function is optimized in isolation, the performance of the combined application can be an order of magnitude below hardware limits due to extensive data movement across these functions. To address this problem, we propose Weld, a new interface between data-intensive libraries that can optimize across disjoint libraries and functions. Weld exposes a lazily-evaluated API where diverse functions can submit their computations in a simple but general intermediate representation that captures their data-parallel structure. It then optimizes data movement across these functions and emits efficient code for diverse hardware. Weld can be integrated into existing frameworks such as Spark, TensorFlow, Pandas and NumPy without changing their user-facing APIs. We demonstrate that Weld can speed up applications using these frameworks by up to 29x.
Image operator learning coupled with CNN classification and its application to staff line removal
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2017
Year: 2017

Many image transformations can be modeled by image operators that are characterized by pixel-wise local functions defined on a finite support window. In image operator learning, these functions are estimated from training data using machine learning techniques. Input size is usually a critical issue when using learning algorithms, and it limits the size of practicable windows. We propose the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to overcome this limitation. The problem of removing staff-lines in music score images is chosen to evaluate the effects of window and convolutional mask sizes on the learned image operator performance. Results show that the CNN based solution outperforms previous ones obtained using conventional learning algorithms or heuristic algorithms, indicating the potential of CNNs as base classifiers in image operator learning. The implementations will be made available on the TRIOSlib project site.
Identifying Retweetable Tweets with a Personalized Global Classifier
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2017
Year: 2017

In this paper we present a method to identify tweets that a user may find interesting enough to retweet. The method is based on a global, but personalized classifier, which is trained on data from several users, represented in terms of user-specific features. Thus, the method is trained on a sufficient volume of data, while also being able to make personalized decisions, i.e., the same post received by two different users may lead to different classification decisions. Experimenting with a collection of approx.\ 130K tweets received by 122 journalists, we train a logistic regression classifier, using a wide variety of features: the content of each tweet, its novelty, its text similarity to tweets previously posted or retweeted by the recipient or sender of the tweet, the network influence of the author and sender, and their past interactions. Our system obtains F1 approx. 0.9 using only 10 features and 5K training instances.
Learning of Coordination Policies for Robotic Swarms
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2017
Year: 2017

Inspired by biological swarms, robotic swarms are envisioned to solve real-world problems that are difficult for individual agents. Biological swarms can achieve collective intelligence based on local interactions and simple rules; however, designing effective distributed policies for large-scale robotic swarms to achieve a global objective can be challenging. Although it is often possible to design an optimal centralized strategy for smaller numbers of agents, those methods can fail as the number of agents increases. Motivated by the growing success of machine learning, we develop a deep learning approach that learns distributed coordination policies from centralized policies. In contrast to traditional distributed control approaches, which are usually based on human-designed policies for relatively simple tasks, this learning-based approach can be adapted to more difficult tasks. We demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed approach on two different tasks, the well-known rendezvous problem and a more difficult particle assignment problem. For the latter, no known distributed policy exists. From extensive simulations, it is shown that the performance of the learned coordination policies is comparable to the centralized policies, surpassing state-of-the-art distributed policies. Thereby, our proposed approach provides a promising alternative for real-world coordination problems that would be otherwise computationally expensive to solve or intangible to explore.
Linear Computer-Music through Sequences over Galois Fields
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2017
Year: 2017

It is shown how binary sequences can be associated with automatic composition of monophonic pieces. We are concerned with the composition of e-music from finite field structures. The information at the input may be either random or information from a black-and-white, grayscale or color picture. New e-compositions and music score are made available, including a new piece from the famous Lenna picture: the score of the e-music <<Between Lenna's eyes in C major.>> The corresponding stretch of music score are presented. Some particular structures, including clock arithmetic (mod 12), GF(7), GF(8), GF(13) and GF(17) are addressed. Further, multilevel block-codes are also used in a new approach of e-music composition, engendering a particular style as an e-composer. As an example, Pascal multilevel block codes recently introduced are handled to generate a new style of electronic music over GF(13).
Sieve: Actionable Insights from Monitored Metrics in Microservices
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2017
Year: 2017

Major cloud computing operators provide powerful monitoring tools to understand the current (and prior) state of the distributed systems deployed in their infrastructure. While such tools provide a detailed monitoring mechanism at scale, they also pose a significant challenge for the application developers/operators to transform the huge space of monitored metrics into useful insights. These insights are essential to build effective management tools for improving the efficiency, resiliency, and dependability of distributed systems. This paper reports on our experience with building and deploying Sieve - a platform to derive actionable insights from monitored metrics in distributed systems. Sieve builds on two core components: a metrics reduction framework, and a metrics dependency extractor. More specifically, Sieve first reduces the dimensionality of metrics by automatically filtering out unimportant metrics by observing their signal over time. Afterwards, Sieve infers metrics dependencies between distributed components of the system using a predictive-causality model by testing for Granger Causality. We implemented Sieve as a generic platform and deployed it for two microservices-based distributed systems: OpenStack and ShareLatex. Our experience shows that (1) Sieve can reduce the number of metrics by at least an order of magnitude (10 - 100$\times$), while preserving the statistical equivalence to the total number of monitored metrics; (2) Sieve can dramatically improve existing monitoring infrastructures by reducing the associated overheads over the entire system stack (CPU - 80%, storage - 90%, and network - 50%); (3) Lastly, Sieve can be effective to support a wide-range of workflows in distributed systems - we showcase two such workflows: orchestration of autoscaling, and Root Cause Analysis (RCA).
Reversible Joint Hilbert and Linear Canonical Transform Without Distortion
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

Generalized analytic signal associated with the linear canonical transform (LCT) was proposed recently by Fu and Li ["Generalized Analytic Signal Associated With Linear Canonical Transform," Opt. Commun., vol. 281, pp. 1468-1472, 2008]. However, most real signals, especially for baseband real signals, cannot be perfectly recovered from their generalized analytic signals. Therefore, in this paper, the conventional Hilbert transform (HT) and analytic signal associated with the LCT are concerned. To transform a real signal into the LCT of its HT, two integral transforms (i.e., the HT and LCT) are required. The goal of this paper is to simplify cascades of multiple integral transforms, which may be the HT, analytic signal, LCT or inverse LCT. The proposed transforms can reduce the complexity when realizing the relationships among the following six kinds of signals: a real signal, its HT and analytic signal, and the LCT of these three signals. Most importantly, all the proposed transforms are reversible and undistorted. Using the proposed transforms, several signal processing applications are discussed and show the advantages and flexibility over simply using the analytic signal or the LCT.
Dissecting the Spatial Structure of Cities from Human Mobility Patterns to Define Functional Urban Boundaries
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2017
Year: 2017

Since the industrial revolution, accelerated urban growth has overflown administrative divisions, merged cities into large built extensions, and blurred the boundaries between urban and rural land-uses. These traits, present in most of contemporary metropolis, complicate the definition of cities, a crucial issue considering that objective and comparable metrics are the basic inputs needed for the planning and design of sustainable urban environments. In this context, city definitions that respond to administrative or political criteria usually overlook human dynamics, a key factor that could help to make cities comparable across the urban fabric of diverse social, cultural and economic realities. Using a technique based on the spectral analysis of complex networks, we rank places in 11 of the major Chilean urban regions from a high-resolution human mobility dataset: Official origin-destination (OD) surveys. We propose a method for further distinguishing urban and rural land-uses within these regions, by means of a network centrality measure from which we construct a spectre of geographic places. This spectre, constructed from the ranking of locations as measured by their approximate number of embedded human flows, allows us to probe several urban boundaries. From the analysis of the urban scaling exponent of trips in relation to the population across these city delineations, we identify two clearly distinct scaling regimes occurring in urban and rural areas. The comparison of our results with land cover derived from remote sensing suggests that, for the case of trips, the scaling exponent in urban areas is close to linear. We conclude with estimations for well-formed cities in the Chilean urban system, which according to our analysis could emerge from clusters composed by places that capture at least ~138 trips (over the expectation) of the underlying mobility network.
An Improvement on LSB Matching and LSB Matching Revisited Steganography Methods
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2017
Year: 2017

The aim of the steganography methods is to communicate securely in a completely undetectable manner. LSB Matching and LSB Matching Revisited steganography methods are two general and esiest methods to achieve this aim. Being secured against first order steganalysis methods is the most important feature of these methods. On the other hand, these methods don't consider inter pixel dependency. Therefore, recently, several steganalysis methods are proposed that by using co-occurrence matrix detect stego images that are hidden by these steganography methods. Therefore, if incremental and decremental operations are done adaptively as causes to less distortion on co-occurrence matrix, these steganography methods will secure against steganalysis methods that use this matrix. In this paper we are going to improve these two steganography methods base on mentioned manner. On the other word, we hide the message in the cover image based on LSB Matching and LSB Matching Revisited method by using adaptive feature. Experimental results show that proposed improvement causes to reduce distortions in co-occurrence matrix and these methods being secure against some steganalysis methods that use this matrix to detect stego images
Latent Embeddings for Collective Activity Recognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2017
Year: 2017

Rather than simply recognizing the action of a person individually, collective activity recognition aims to find out what a group of people is acting in a collective scene. Previ- ous state-of-the-art methods using hand-crafted potentials in conventional graphical model which can only define a limited range of relations. Thus, the complex structural de- pendencies among individuals involved in a collective sce- nario cannot be fully modeled. In this paper, we overcome these limitations by embedding latent variables into feature space and learning the feature mapping functions in a deep learning framework. The embeddings of latent variables build a global relation containing person-group interac- tions and richer contextual information by jointly modeling broader range of individuals. Besides, we assemble atten- tion mechanism during embedding for achieving more com- pact representations. We evaluate our method on three col- lective activity datasets, where we contribute a much larger dataset in this work. The proposed model has achieved clearly better performance as compared to the state-of-the- art methods in our experiments.
Information-Coupled Turbo Codes for LTE Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

We propose a new class of information-coupled (IC) Turbo codes to improve the transport block (TB) error rate performance for long-term evolution (LTE) systems, while keeping the hybrid automatic repeat request protocol and the Turbo decoder for each code block (CB) unchanged. In the proposed codes, every two consecutive CBs in a TB are coupled together by sharing a few common information bits. We propose a feed-forward and feed-back decoding scheme and a windowed (WD) decoding scheme for decoding the whole TB by exploiting the coupled information between CBs. Both decoding schemes achieve a considerable signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) gain compared to the LTE Turbo codes. We construct the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) functions for the LTE Turbo codes and our proposed IC Turbo codes from the EXIT functions of underlying convolutional codes. An SNR gain upper bound of our proposed codes over the LTE Turbo codes is derived and calculated by the constructed EXIT charts. Numerical results show that the proposed codes achieve an SNR gain of 0.25 dB to 0.72 dB for various code parameters at a TB error rate level of $10^{-2}$, which complies with the derived SNR gain upper bound.
Block-Diagonal Solutions to Lyapunov Inequalities and Generalisations of Diagonal Dominance
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2017
Year: 2017

Diagonally dominant matrices have many applications in systems and control theory. Linear dynamical systems with scaled diagonally dominant drift matrices, which include stable positive systems, allow for scalable stability analysis. For example, it is known that Lyapunov inequalities for this class of systems admit diagonal solutions. In this paper, we present an extension of scaled diagonally dominance to block partitioned matrices. We show that our definition describes matrices admitting block-diagonal solutions to Lyapunov inequalities and that these solutions can be computed using linear algebraic tools. We also show how in some cases the Lyapunov inequalities can be decoupled into a set of lower dimensional linear matrix inequalities, thus leading to improved scalability. We conclude by illustrating some advantages and limitations of our results with numerical examples.
Towards Better Understanding of Bitcoin Unreachable Peers
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2017
Year: 2017

The bitcoin peer-to-peer network has drawn significant attention from researchers, but so far has mostly focused on publicly visible portions of the network, i.e., publicly reachable peers. This mostly ignores the hidden parts of the network: unreachable Bitcoin peers behind NATs and firewalls. In this paper, we characterize Bitcoin peers that might be behind NATs or firewalls from different perspectives. Using a special-purpose measurement tool we conduct a large scale measurement study of the Bitcoin network, and discover several previously unreported usage patterns: a small number of peers are involved in the propagation of 89% of all bitcoin transactions, public cloud services are being used for Bitcoin network probing and crawling, a large amount of transactions are generated from only two mobile applications. We also empirically evaluate a method that uses timing information to re-identify the peer that created a transaction against unreachable peers. We find this method very accurate for peers that use the latest version of the Bitcoin Core client.
The impact of partially missing communities~on the reliability of centrality measures
Venue: arXiv cs.SI 2017
Year: 2017

Network data is usually not error-free, and the absence of some nodes is a very common type of measurement error. Studies have shown that the reliability of centrality measures is severely affected by missing nodes. This paper investigates the reliability of centrality measures when missing nodes are likely to belong to the same community. We study the behavior of five commonly used centrality measures in uniform and scale-free networks in various error scenarios. We find that centrality measures are generally more reliable when missing nodes are likely to belong to the same community than in cases in which nodes are missing uniformly at random. In scale-free networks, the betweenness centrality becomes, however, less reliable when missing nodes are more likely to belong to the same community. Moreover, centrality measures in scale-free networks are more reliable in networks with stronger community structure. In contrast, we do not observe this effect for uniform networks. Our observations suggest that the impact of missing nodes on the reliability of centrality measures might not be as severe as the literature suggests.