OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
MSE estimates for multitaper spectral estimation and off-grid compressive sensing
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

We obtain estimates for the Mean Squared Error (MSE) for the multitaper spectral estimator and certain compressive acquisition methods for multi-band signals. We confirm a fact discovered by Thomson [Spectrum estimation and harmonic analysis, Proc. IEEE, 1982]: assuming bandwidth $W$ and $N$ time domain observations, the average of the square of the first $K=2NW$ Slepian functions approaches, as $K$ grows, an ideal band-pass kernel for the interval $[-W,W]$. We provide an analytic proof of this fact and measure the corresponding rate of convergence in the $L^{1}$ norm. This validates a heuristic approximation used to control the MSE of the multitaper estimator. The estimates have also consequences for the method of compressive acquisition of multi-band signals introduced by Davenport and Wakin, giving MSE approximation bounds for the dictionary formed by modulation of the critical number of prolates.
Fast and Flexible Successive-Cancellation List Decoders for Polar Codes
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

Polar codes have gained significant amount of attention during the past few years and have been selected as a coding scheme for the next generation of mobile broadband standard. Among decoding schemes, successive-cancellation list (SCL) decoding provides a reasonable trade-off between the error-correction performance and hardware implementation complexity when used to decode polar codes, at the cost of limited throughput. The simplified SCL (SSCL) and its extension SSCL-SPC increase the speed of decoding by removing redundant calculations when encountering particular information and frozen bit patterns (rate one and single parity check codes), while keeping the error-correction performance unaltered. In this paper, we improve SSCL and SSCL-SPC by proving that the list size imposes a specific number of bit estimations required to decode rate one and single parity check codes. Thus, the number of estimations can be limited while guaranteeing exactly the same error-correction performance as if all bits of the code were estimated. We call the new decoding algorithms Fast-SSCL and Fast-SSCL-SPC. Moreover, we show that the number of bit estimations in a practical application can be tuned to achieve desirable speed, while keeping the error-correction performance almost unchanged. Hardware architectures implementing both algorithms are then described and implemented: it is shown that our design can achieve 1.86 Gb/s throughput, higher than the best state-of-the-art decoders.
Position and Orientation Based Formation Control of Multiple Rigid Bodies with Collision Avoidance and Connectivity Maintenance
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2017
Year: 2017

This paper addresses the problem of position- and orientation-based formation control of a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems in a $3$D workspace with obstacles. More specifically, we design a decentralized control protocol such that each agent achieves a predefined geometric formation with its initial neighbors, while using local information based on a limited sensing radius. The latter implies that the proposed scheme guarantees that the initially connected agents remain always connected. In addition, by introducing certain distance constraints, we guarantee inter-agent collision avoidance as well as collision avoidance with the obstacles and the boundary of the workspace. The proposed controllers employ a novel class of potential functions and do not require a priori knowledge of the dynamical model, except for gravity-related terms. Finally, simulation results verify the validity of the proposed framework.
A Novel Millimeter-Wave Channel Simulator and Applications for 5G Wireless Communications
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

This paper presents details and applications of a novel channel simulation software named NYUSIM, which can be used to generate realistic temporal and spatial channel responses to support realistic physical- and link-layer simulations and design for fifth-generation (5G) cellular communications. NYUSIM is built upon the statistical spatial channel model for broadband millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless communication systems developed by researchers at New York University (NYU). The simulator is applicable for a wide range of carrier frequencies (500 MHz to 100 GHz), radio frequency (RF) bandwidths (0 to 800 MHz), antenna beamwidths (7 to 360 degrees for azimuth and 7 to 45 degrees for elevation), and operating scenarios (urban microcell, urban macrocell, and rural macrocell), and also incorporates multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna arrays at the transmitter and receiver. This paper also provides examples to demonstrate how to use NYUSIM for analyzing MIMO channel conditions and spectral efficiencies, which show that NYUSIM is an alternative and more realistic channel model compared to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and other channel models for mmWave bands.
Evolutionary Stability of Reputation Management System in Peer to Peer Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2017
Year: 2017

Each participant in peer-to-peer network prefers to free-ride on the contribution of other participants. Reputation based resource sharing is a way to control the free riding. Instead of classical game theory we use evolutionary game theory to analyse the reputation based resource sharing in peer to peer system. Classical game-theoretical approach requires global information of the population. However, the evolutionary games only assumes light cognitive capabilities of users, that is, each user imitates the behavior of other user with better payoff. We find that without any extra benefit reputation strategy is not stable in the system. We also find the fraction of users who calculate the reputation for controlling the free riding in equilibrium. In this work first we made a game theoretical model for the reputation system and then we calculate the threshold of the fraction of users with which the reputation strategy is sustainable in the system. We found that in simplistic conditions reputation calculation is not evolutionarily stable strategy but if we impose some initial payment to all users and then distribute that payment among the users who are calculating reputation then reputation is evolutionary stable strategy.
Permutation Generators Based on Unbalanced Feistel Network: Analysis of the Conditions of Pseudorandomness
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2017
Year: 2017

A block cipher is a bijective function that transforms a plaintext to a ciphertext. A block cipher is a principle component in a cryptosystem because the security of a cryptosystem depends on the security of a block cipher. A Feistel network is the most widely used method to construct a block cipher. This structure has a property such that it can transform a function to a bijective function. But the previous Feistel network is unsuitable to construct block ciphers that have large input-output size. One way to construct block ciphers with large input-output size is to use an unbalanced Feistel network that is the generalization of a previous Feistel network. There have been little research on unbalanced Feistel networks and previous work was about some particular structures of unbalanced Feistel networks. So previous work didn't provide a theoretical base to construct block ciphers that are secure and efficient using unbalanced Feistel networks. In this thesis, we analyze the minimal number of rounds of pseudo-random permutation generators that use unbalanced Feistel networks. That is, after categorizing unbalanced Feistel networks as source-heavy structures and target-heavy structures, we analyze the minimal number of rounds of pseudo-random permutation generators that use each structure. Therefore, in order to construct a block cipher that is secure and efficient using unbalanced Feistel networks, we should follow the results of this thesis. Additionally, we propose a new unbalanced Feistel network that has some advantages such that it can extend a previous block cipher with small input-output size to a new block cipher with large input-output size. We also analyze the minimum number of rounds of a pseudo-random permutation generator that uses this structure.
Taming Tail Latency for Erasure-coded, Distributed Storage Systems
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2017
Year: 2017

Distributed storage systems are known to be susceptible to long tails in response time. In modern online storage systems such as Bing, Facebook, and Amazon, the long tails of the service latency are of particular concern. with 99.9th percentile response times being orders of magnitude worse than the mean. As erasure codes emerge as a popular technique to achieve high data reliability in distributed storage while attaining space efficiency, taming tail latency still remains an open problem due to the lack of mathematical models for analyzing such systems. To this end, we propose a framework for quantifying and optimizing tail latency in erasure-coded storage systems. In particular, we derive upper bounds on tail latency in closed form for arbitrary service time distribution and heterogeneous files. Based on the model, we formulate an optimization problem to jointly minimize the weighted latency tail probability of all files over the placement of files on the servers, and the choice of servers to access the requested files. The non-convex problem is solved using an efficient, alternating optimization algorithm. Numerical results show significant reduction of tail latency for erasure-coded storage systems with a realistic workload.
Improving Classification by Improving Labelling: Introducing Probabilistic Multi-Label Object Interaction Recognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2017
Year: 2017

This work deviates from easy-to-define class boundaries for object interactions. For the task of object interaction recognition, often captured using an egocentric view, we show that semantic ambiguities in verbs and recognising sub-interactions along with concurrent interactions result in legitimate class overlaps (Figure 1). We thus aim to model the mapping between observations and interaction classes, as well as class overlaps, towards a probabilistic multi-label classifier that emulates human annotators. Given a video segment containing an object interaction, we model the probability for a verb, out of a list of possible verbs, to be used to annotate that interaction. The proba- bility is learnt from crowdsourced annotations, and is tested on two public datasets, comprising 1405 video sequences for which we provide annotations on 90 verbs. We outper- form conventional single-label classification by 11% and 6% on the two datasets respectively, and show that learning from annotation probabilities outperforms majority voting and enables discovery of co-occurring labels.
Event-based State Estimation: An Emulation-based Approach
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2017
Year: 2017

An event-based state estimation approach for reducing communication in a networked control system is proposed. Multiple distributed sensor agents observe a dynamic process and sporadically transmit their measurements to estimator agents over a shared bus network. Local event-triggering protocols ensure that data is transmitted only when necessary to meet a desired estimation accuracy. The event-based design is shown to emulate the performance of a centralised state observer design up to guaranteed bounds, but with reduced communication. The stability results for state estimation are extended to the distributed control system that results when the local estimates are used for feedback control. Results from numerical simulations and hardware experiments illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in reducing network communication.
Requirements Engineering Practice and Problems in Agile Projects: Results from an International Survey
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2017
Year: 2017

Requirements engineering (RE) is considerably different in agile development than in more traditional development processes. Yet, there is little empirical knowledge on the state of the practice and contemporary problems in agile RE. As part of a bigger survey initiative (Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering), we build an empirical basis on such aspects of agile RE. Based on the responses of representatives from 92 different organisations, we found that agile RE concentrates on free-text documentation of requirements elicited with a variety of techniques. Often, traces between requirements and code are explicitly managed and also software testing and RE are aligned. Furthermore, continuous improvement of RE is performed due to intrinsic motivation. Important experienced problems include unclear requirements and communication flaws. Overall, we found that most organisations conduct RE in a way we would expect and that agile RE is in several aspects not so different from RE in other development processes.
A vehicle-to-infrastructure communication based algorithm for urban traffic control
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2017
Year: 2017

We present in this paper a new algorithm for urban traffic light control with mixed traffic (communicating and non communicating vehicles) and mixed infrastructure (equipped and unequipped junctions). We call equipped junction here a junction with a traffic light signal (TLS) controlled by a road side unit (RSU). On such a junction, the RSU manifests its connectedness to equipped vehicles by broadcasting its communication address and geographical coordinates. The RSU builds a map of connected vehicles approaching and leaving the junction. The algorithm allows the RSU to select a traffic phase, based on the built map. The selected traffic phase is applied by the TLS; and both equipped and unequipped vehicles must respect it. The traffic management is in feedback on the traffic demand of communicating vehicles. We simulated the vehicular traffic as well as the communications. The two simulations are combined in a closed loop with visualization and monitoring interfaces. Several indicators on vehicular traffic (mean travel time, ended vehicles) and IEEE 802.11p communication performances (end-to-end delay, throughput) are derived and illustrated in three dimension maps. We then extended the traffic control to a urban road network where we also varied the number of equipped junctions. Other indicators are shown for road traffic performances in the road network case, where high gains are experienced in the simulation results.
Virtualization technology for distributed time sensitive domains
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2017
Year: 2017

This paper reports on the state of the art of virtualization technology for both general purpose domains as well as real-time domains. There exits no entirely instantaneous data transmission/transfer. There always exist a delay while transmitting data, either in the processing or in the medium itself. However most systems are designed to function appropriately with a delay tolerance. This delay, inevitably, is affected when operating with an extra layer, the virtualization. For real time systems it is crucial to know the temporal limits in order not to surpass them. Introducing virtualization in the real-time domain therefore requires deeper analysis by making use of techniques that will offer results with deterministic execution times. The study of time in systems and its behaviour under various possible circumstances is hence a key for properly assessing this technology applied to both domains, especially the real-time domain.
Joint Modeling of Event Sequence and Time Series with Attentional Twin Recurrent Neural Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2017
Year: 2017

A variety of real-world processes (over networks) produce sequences of data whose complex temporal dynamics need to be studied. More especially, the event timestamps can carry important information about the underlying network dynamics, which otherwise are not available from the time-series evenly sampled from continuous signals. Moreover, in most complex processes, event sequences and evenly-sampled times series data can interact with each other, which renders joint modeling of those two sources of data necessary. To tackle the above problems, in this paper, we utilize the rich framework of (temporal) point processes to model event data and timely update its intensity function by the synergic twin Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs). In the proposed architecture, the intensity function is synergistically modulated by one RNN with asynchronous events as input and another RNN with time series as input. Furthermore, to enhance the interpretability of the model, the attention mechanism for the neural point process is introduced. The whole model with event type and timestamp prediction output layers can be trained end-to-end and allows a black-box treatment for modeling the intensity. We substantiate the superiority of our model in synthetic data and three real-world benchmark datasets.
Balancing Selection Pressures, Multiple Objectives, and Neural Modularity to Coevolve Cooperative Agent Behavior
Venue: arXiv cs.NE 2017
Year: 2017

Previous research using evolutionary computation in Multi-Agent Systems indicates that assigning fitness based on team vs.\ individual behavior has a strong impact on the ability of evolved teams of artificial agents to exhibit teamwork in challenging tasks. However, such research only made use of single-objective evolution. In contrast, when a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm is used, populations can be subject to individual-level objectives, team-level objectives, or combinations of the two. This paper explores the performance of cooperatively coevolved teams of agents controlled by artificial neural networks subject to these types of objectives. Specifically, predator agents are evolved to capture scripted prey agents in a torus-shaped grid world. Because of the tension between individual and team behaviors, multiple modes of behavior can be useful, and thus the effect of modular neural networks is also explored. Results demonstrate that fitness rewarding individual behavior is superior to fitness rewarding team behavior, despite being applied to a cooperative task. However, the use of networks with multiple modules allows predators to discover intelligent behavior, regardless of which type of objectives are used.
Regularized Gradient Descent: A Nonconvex Recipe for Fast Joint Blind Deconvolution and Demixing
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2017
Year: 2017

We study the question of extracting a sequence of functions $\{\boldsymbol{f}_i, \boldsymbol{g}_i\}_{i=1}^s$ from observing only the sum of their convolutions, i.e., from $\boldsymbol{y} = \sum_{i=1}^s \boldsymbol{f}_i\ast \boldsymbol{g}_i$. While convex optimization techniques are able to solve this joint blind deconvolution-demixing problem provably and robustly under certain conditions, for medium-size or large-size problems we need computationally faster methods without sacrificing the benefits of mathematical rigor that come with convex methods. In this paper, we present a non-convex algorithm which guarantees exact recovery under conditions that are competitive with convex optimization methods, with the additional advantage of being computationally much more efficient. Our two-step algorithm converges to the global minimum linearly and is also robust in the presence of additive noise. While the derived performance bounds are suboptimal in terms of the information-theoretic limit, numerical simulations show remarkable performance even if the number of measurements is close to the number of degrees of freedom. We discuss an application of the proposed framework in wireless communications in connection with the Internet-of-Things.
Modeling and control of modern wind turbine systems: An introduction
Venue: arXiv cs.SY 2017
Year: 2017

This chapter provides an introduction to the modeling and control of power generation from wind turbine systems. In modeling, the focus is on the electrical components: electrical machine (e.g. permanent-magnet synchronous generators), back-to-back converter (consisting of machine-side and grid-side converter sharing a common DC-link), mains filters and ideal (balanced) power grid. The aerodynamics and the torque generation of the wind turbine are explained in simplified terms using a so-called power coefficient. The overall control system is considered. In particular, the phase-locked loop system for grid-side voltage orientation, the nonlinear speed control system for the generator (and turbine), and the non-minimum phase DC-link voltage control system are discussed in detail; based on a brief derivation of the underlying machine-side and grid-side current control systems. With the help of the power balance of the wind turbine, the operation management and the control of the power flow are explained. Concluding simulation results illustrate the overall system behavior of a controlled wind turbine with a permanent-magnet synchronous generator.
Exploration--Exploitation in MDPs with Options
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2017
Year: 2017

While a large body of empirical results show that temporally-extended actions and options may significantly affect the learning performance of an agent, the theoretical understanding of how and when options can be beneficial in online reinforcement learning is relatively limited. In this paper, we derive an upper and lower bound on the regret of a variant of UCRL using options. While we first analyze the algorithm in the general case of semi-Markov decision processes (SMDPs), we show how these results can be translated to the specific case of MDPs with options and we illustrate simple scenarios in which the regret of learning with options can be \textit{provably} much smaller than the regret suffered when learning with primitive actions.
Enumerating k-Vertex Connected Components in Large Graphs
Venue: arXiv cs.DB 2017
Year: 2017

Cohesive subgraph detection is an important graph problem that is widely applied in many application domains, such as social community detection, network visualization, and network topology analysis. Most of existing cohesive subgraph metrics can guarantee good structural properties but may cause the free-rider effect. Here, by free-rider effect, we mean that some irrelevant subgraphs are combined as one subgraph if they only share a small number of vertices and edges. In this paper, we study k-vertex connected component (k-VCC) which can effectively eliminate the free-rider effect but less studied in the literature. A k-VCC is a connected subgraph in which the removal of any k-1 vertices will not disconnect the subgraph. In addition to eliminating the free-rider effect, k-VCC also has other advantages such as bounded diameter, high cohesiveness, bounded graph overlapping, and bounded subgraph number. We propose a polynomial time algorithm to enumerate all k-VCCs of a graph by recursively partitioning the graph into overlapped subgraphs. We find that the key to improving the algorithm is reducing the number of local connectivity testings. Therefore, we propose two effective optimization strategies, namely neighbor sweep and group sweep, to largely reduce the number of local connectivity testings. We conduct extensive performance studies using seven large real datasets to demonstrate the effectiveness of this model as well as the efficiency of our proposed algorithms.