pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Adversarial Robustness is at Odds with Lazy Training
Authors: Yunjuan Wang, Enayat Ullah, Poorya Mianjy, Raman Arora
Date: 2022-06-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Adversarial Robustness, Learning Theory

Recent works show that adversarial examples exist for random neural networks [Daniely and Schacham, 2020] and that these examples can be found using a single step of gradient ascent [Bubeck et al., 2021]. In this work, we extend this line of work to "lazy training" of neural networks -- a dominant model in deep learning theory in which neural networks are provably efficiently learnable. We show that over-parametrized neural networks that are guaranteed to generalize well and enjoy strong computational guarantees remain vulnerable to attacks generated using a single step of gradient ascent.
Embedding phylogenetic trees in networks of low treewidth
Authors: Leo van Iersel, Mark Jones, Mathias Weller
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00

Given a rooted, binary phylogenetic network and a rooted, binary phylogenetic tree, can the tree be embedded into the network? This problem, called \textsc{Tree Containment}, arises when validating networks constructed by phylogenetic inference methods.We present the first algorithm for (rooted) \textsc{Tree Containment} using the treewidth $t$ of the input network $N$ as parameter, showing that the problem can be solved in $2^{O(t^2)}\cdot|N|$ time and space.
A self-contained karma economy for the dynamic allocation of common resources
Authors: Ezzat Elokda, Saverio Bolognani, Andrea Censi, Florian Dörfler, Emilio Frazzoli
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Fairness

This paper presents karma mechanisms, a novel approach to the repeated allocation of a scarce resource among competing agents over an infinite time. Examples include deciding which ride hailing trip requests to serve during peak demand, granting the right of way in intersections or lane mergers, or admitting internet content to a regulated fast channel. We study a simplified yet insightful formulation of these problems where at every instant two agents from a large population get randomly matched to compete over the resource. The intuitive interpretation of a karma mechanism is "If I give in now, I will be rewarded in the future." Agents compete in an auction-like setting where they bid units of karma, which circulates directly among them and is self-contained in the system. We demonstrate that this allows a society of self-interested agents to achieve high levels of efficiency without resorting to a (possibly problematic) monetary pricing of the resource. We model karma mechanisms as dynamic population games and guarantee the existence of a stationary Nash equilibrium. We then analyze the performance at the stationary Nash equilibrium numerically. For the case of homogeneous agents, we compare different mechanism design choices, showing that it is possible to achieve an efficient and ex-post fair allocation when the agents are future aware. Finally, we test the robustness against agent heterogeneity and propose remedies to some of the observed phenomena via karma redistribution.
A framework for receding-horizon control in infinite-horizon aggregative games
Authors: Filiberto Fele, Antonio De Paola, David Angeli, Goran Strbac
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00

A novel modelling framework is proposed for the analysis of aggregative games on an infinite-time horizon, assuming that players are subject to heterogeneous periodic constraints. A new aggregative equilibrium notion is presented and the strategic behaviour of the agents is analysed under a receding horizon paradigm. The evolution of the strategies predicted and implemented by the players over time is modelled through a discrete-time multi-valued dynamical system. By considering Lyapunov stability notions and applying limit and invariance results for set-valued correspondences, necessary conditions are derived for convergence of a receding horizon map to a periodic equilibrium of the aggregative game. This result is achieved for any (feasible) initial condition, thus ensuring implicit adaptivity of the proposed control framework to real-time variations in the number and parameters of players. Design and implementation of the proposed control strategy are discussed and an example of distributed control for data routing is presented, evaluating its performance in simulation.
Motion Compensated Frequency Selective Extrapolation for Error Concealment in Video Coding
Authors: Jürgen Seiler, André Kaup
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00

Although wireless and IP-based access to video content gives a new degree of freedom to the viewers, the risk of severe block losses caused by transmission errors is always present. The purpose of this paper is to present a new method for concealing block losses in erroneously received video sequences. For this, a motion compensated data set is generated around the lost block. Based on this aligned data set, a model of the signal is created that continues the signal into the lost areas. Since spatial as well as temporal informations are used for the model generation, the proposed method is superior to methods that use either spatial or temporal information for concealment. Furthermore it outperforms current state of the art spatio-temporal concealment algorithms by up to 1.4 dB in PSNR.
Self-Supervised Learning for Videos: A Survey
Authors: Madeline C. Schiappa, Yogesh S. Rawat, Mubarak Shah
Date: 2022-06-18 00:00:00
Tasks: Contrastive Learning, Domain Generalization, Representation Learning, Self-Supervised Learning, Survey

The remarkable success of deep learning in various domains relies on the availability of large-scale annotated datasets. However, obtaining annotations is expensive and requires great effort, which is especially challenging for videos. Moreover, the use of human-generated annotations leads to models with biased learning and poor domain generalization and robustness. As an alternative, self-supervised learning provides a way for representation learning which does not require annotations and has shown promise in both image and video domains. Different from the image domain, learning video representations are more challenging due to the temporal dimension, bringing in motion and other environmental dynamics. This also provides opportunities for video-exclusive ideas that advance self-supervised learning in the video and multimodal domain. In this survey, we provide a review of existing approaches on self-supervised learning focusing on the video domain. We summarize these methods into four different categories based on their learning objectives: 1) pretext tasks, 2) generative learning, 3) contrastive learning, and 4) cross-modal agreement. We further introduce the commonly used datasets, downstream evaluation tasks, insights into the limitations of existing works, and the potential future directions in this area.
On the Performance of Data Compression in Clustered Fog Radio Access Networks
Authors: Haonan Hu, Yan Jiang, Jiliang Zhang, Yanan Zheng, Qianbin Chen, Jie Zhang
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Data Compression

The fog-radio-access-network (F-RAN) has been proposed to address the strict latency requirements, which offloads computation tasks generated in user equipments (UEs) to the edge to reduce the processing latency. However, it incorporates the task transmission latency, which may become the bottleneck of latency requirements. Data compression (DC) has been considered as one of the promising techniques to reduce the transmission latency. By compressing the computation tasks before transmitting, the transmission delay is reduced due to the shrink transmitted data size, and the original computing task can be retrieved by employing data decompressing (DD) at the edge nodes or the centre cloud. Nevertheless, the DC and DD incorporate extra processing latency, and the latency performance has not been investigated in the large-scale DC-enabled F-RAN. Therefore, in this work, the successful data compression probability (SDCP) is defined to analyse the latency performance of the F-RAN. Moreover, to analyse the effect of compression offloading ratio (COR), a novel hybrid compression mode is proposed based on the queueing theory. Based on this, the closed-form result of SDCP in the large-scale DC-enabled F-RAN is derived by combining the Matern cluster process and M/G/1 queueing model, and validated by Monte Carlo simulations. Based on the derived SDCP results, the effects of COR on the SDCP is analysed numerically. The results show that the SDCP with the optimal COR can be enhanced with a maximum value of 0.3 and 0.55 as compared with the cases of compressing all computing tasks at the edge and at the UE, respectively. Moreover, for the system requiring the minimal latency, the proposed hybrid compression mode can alleviate the requirement on the backhaul capacity.
Variational Autoencoder Assisted Neural Network Likelihood RSRP Prediction Model
Authors: Peizheng Li, Xiaoyang Wang, Robert Piechocki, Shipra Kapoor, Angela Doufexi, Arjun Parekh
Date: 2022-06-27 00:00:00
Tasks: Management, Prediction

Measuring customer experience on mobile data is of utmost importance for global mobile operators. The reference signal received power (RSRP) is one of the important indicators for current mobile network management, evaluation and monitoring. Radio data gathered through the minimization of drive test (MDT), a 3GPP standard technique, is commonly used for radio network analysis. Collecting MDT data in different geographical areas is inefficient and constrained by the terrain conditions and user presence, hence is not an adequate technique for dynamic radio environments. In this paper, we study a generative model for RSRP prediction, exploiting MDT data and a digital twin (DT), and propose a data-driven, two-tier neural network (NN) model. In the first tier, environmental information related to user equipment (UE), base stations (BS) and network key performance indicators (KPI) are extracted through a variational autoencoder (VAE). The second tier is designed as a likelihood model. Here, the environmental features and real MDT data features are adopted, formulating an integrated training process. On validation, our proposed model that uses real-world data demonstrates an accuracy improvement of about 20% or more compared with the empirical model and about 10% when compared with a fully connected prediction network.
AI in 6G: Energy-Efficient Distributed Machine Learning for Multilayer Heterogeneous Networks
Authors: Mohammad Arif Hossain, Abdullah Ridwan Hossain, Nirwan Ansari
Date: 2022-06-04 00:00:00
Tasks: BIG-bench Machine Learning, Management

Adept network management is key for supporting extremely heterogeneous applications with stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements; this is more so when envisioning the complex and ultra-dense 6G mobile heterogeneous network (HetNet). From both the environmental and economical perspectives, non-homogeneous QoS demands obstruct the minimization of the energy footprints and operational costs of the envisioned robust networks. As such, network intelligentization is expected to play an essential role in the realization of such sophisticated aims. The fusion of artificial intelligence (AI) and mobile networks will allow for the dynamic and automatic configuration of network functionalities. Machine learning (ML), one of the backbones of AI, will be instrumental in forecasting changes in network loads and resource utilization, estimating channel conditions, optimizing network slicing, and enhancing security and encryption. However, it is well known that ML tasks themselves incur massive computational burdens and energy costs. To overcome such obstacles, we propose a novel layer-based HetNet architecture which optimally distributes tasks associated with different ML approaches across network layers and entities; such a HetNet boasts multiple access schemes as well as device-to-device (D2D) communications to enhance energy efficiency via collaborative learning and communications.
Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Next-Generation Mega Satellite Networks
Authors: Bassel Al Homssi, Kosta Dakic, Ke Wang, Tansu Alpcan, Ben Allen, Russell Boyce, Sithamparanathan Kandeepan, Akram Al-Hourani, Walid Saad
Date: 2022-06-02 00:00:00

Space communications, particularly massive satellite networks, re-emerged as an appealing candidate for next generation networks due to major advances in space launching, electronics, processing power, and miniaturization. However, massive satellite networks rely on numerous underlying and intertwined processes that cannot be truly captured using conventionally used models, due to their dynamic and unique features such as orbital speed, inter-satellite links, short pass time, and satellite footprint, among others. Hence, new approaches are needed to enable the network to proactively adjust to the rapidly varying conditions associated within the link. Artificial intelligence (AI) provides a pathway to capture these processes, analyze their behavior, and model their effect on the network. This article introduces the application of AI techniques for integrated terrestrial satellite networks, particularly massive satellite network communications. It details the unique features of massive satellite networks, and the overarching challenges concomitant with their integration into the current communication infrastructure. Moreover, this article provides insights into state-of-the-art AI techniques across various layers of the communication link. This entails applying AI for forecasting the highly dynamic radio channel, spectrum sensing and classification, signal detection and demodulation, inter-satellite and satellite access network optimization, and network security. Moreover, future paradigms and the mapping of these mechanisms onto practical networks are outlined.
Energy Efficient Routing For Underwater Acoustic Sensor Network Using Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Arjun Prasad Chaurasiya, Roshan Sah, Dr. V. Sivakumar
Date: 2022-04-25 00:00:00

In underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWASN), energy-reliable data transmission is a challenging task. This is due to acoustic transmission disturbances caused by excessive noise, exceptionally long propagation delays, a high bit error rate, limited bandwidth capability, and interference. One of the most important issues of UWASN for research is how to extend the life span of data transmission. Data transfer from a source node to a destination node in UWASN is a complicated topic for researchers. Many routing algorithms, such as vector base forwarding and depth base routing, have been developed in past years. We propose a genetic algorithm-based optimization method for improving the energy efficiency of data transmission in the routing path from a source node to a destination node.
Introducing flexible perovskites to the IoT world using photovoltaic-powered wireless tags
Authors: Sai Nithin Reddy Kantareddy, Rahul Bhattacharya, Sanjay E. Sarma, Ian Mathews, Janak Thapa, Liu Zhe, Shijing Sun, Ian Marius Peters, Tonio Buonassisi
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00

Billions of everyday objects could become part of the Internet of Things (IoT) by augmentation with low-cost, long-range, maintenance-free wireless sensors. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a low-cost wireless technology that could enable this vision, but it is constrained by short communication range and lack of sufficient energy available to power auxiliary electronics and sensors. Here, we explore the use of flexible perovskite photovoltaic cells to provide external power to semi-passive RFID tags to increase range and energy availability for external electronics such as microcontrollers and digital sensors. Perovskites are intriguing materials that hold the possibility to develop high-performance, low-cost, optically tunable (to absorb different light spectra), and flexible light energy harvesters. Our prototype perovskite photovoltaic cells on plastic substrates have an efficiency of 13% and a voltage of 0.88 V at maximum power under standard testing conditions. We built prototypes of RFID sensors powered with these flexible photovoltaic cells to demonstrate real-world applications. Our evaluation of the prototypes suggests that: i) flexible PV cells are durable up to a bending radius of 5 mm with only a 20 % drop in relative efficiency; ii) RFID communication range increased by 5x, and meets the energy needs (10-350 microwatt) to enable self-powered wireless sensors; iii) perovskite powered wireless sensors enable many battery-less sensing applications (e.g., perishable good monitoring, warehouse automation)
Reinforcement Learning Based User-Guided Motion Planning for Human-Robot Collaboration
Authors: Tian Yu, Qing Chang
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00
Tasks: Motion Planning, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

Robots are good at performing repetitive tasks in modern manufacturing industries. However, robot motions are mostly planned and preprogrammed with a notable lack of adaptivity to task changes. Even for slightly changed tasks, the whole system must be reprogrammed by robotics experts. Therefore, it is highly desirable to have a flexible motion planning method, with which robots can adapt to specific task changes in unstructured environments, such as production systems or warehouses, with little or no intervention from non-expert personnel. In this paper, we propose a user-guided motion planning algorithm in combination with the reinforcement learning (RL) method to enable robots automatically generate their motion plans for new tasks by learning from a few kinesthetic human demonstrations. To achieve adaptive motion plans for a specific application environment, e.g., desk assembly or warehouse loading/unloading, a library is built by abstracting features of common human demonstrated tasks. The definition of semantical similarity between features in the library and features of a new task is proposed and further used to construct the reward function in RL. The RL policy can automatically generate motion plans for a new task if it determines that new task constraints can be satisfied with the current library and request additional human demonstrations. Multiple experiments conducted on common tasks and scenarios demonstrate that the proposed user-guided RL-assisted motion planning method is effective.
Competitive DER Aggregation for Participation in Wholesale Markets
Authors: Cong Chen, Ahmed S. Alahmed, Timothy D. Mount, Lang Tong
Date: 2022-07-01 00:00:00

The problem of the large-scale aggregation of the behind-the-meter demand and generation resources by a distributed-energy-resource aggregator (DERA) is considered. As a profit-seeking wholesale market participant, a DERA maximizes its profit while providing competitive services to its customers with higher consumer/prosumer surpluses than those offered by the distribution utilities or community choice aggregators. A constrained profit maximization program for aggregating behind-the-meter generation and consumption resources is formulated, from which payment functions for the behind-the-meter consumptions and generations are derived. Also obtained are DERA's bid and offer curves for its participation in the wholesale energy market and the optimal schedule of behind-the-meter resources. It is shown that the proposed DERA's aggregation model can achieve market efficiency equivalent to that when its customers participate individually directly in the wholesale market.
Decentralized Signal Temporal Logic Control for Perturbed Interconnected Systems via Assume-Guarantee Contract Optimization
Authors: Kasra Ghasemi, Sadra Sadraddini, Calin Belta
Date: 2022-06-30 00:00:00

We develop a novel decentralized control method for a network of perturbed linear systems with dynamical couplings subject to Signal Temporal Logic (STL) specifications. We first transform the STL requirements into set containment problems and then we develop controllers to solve these problems. Our approach is based on treating the couplings between subsystems as disturbances, which are bounded sets that the subsystems negotiate in the form of parametric assume-guarantee contracts. The set containment requirements and parameterized contracts are added to the subsystems' constraints. We introduce a centralized optimization problem to derive the contracts, reachability tubes, and decentralized closed-loop control laws. We show that, when the STL formula is separable with respect to the subsystems, the centralized optimization problem can be solved in a distributed way, which scales to large systems. We present formal theoretical guarantees on robustness of STL satisfaction. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated via a power network case study.
Turbo: Opportunistic Enhancement for Edge Video Analytics
Authors: Yan Lu, Shiqi Jiang, Ting Cao, Yuanchao Shu
Date: 2022-06-29 00:00:00
Tasks: Edge-computing, GPU, object-detection, Object Detection

Edge computing is being widely used for video analytics. To alleviate the inherent tension between accuracy and cost, various video analytics pipelines have been proposed to optimize the usage of GPU on edge nodes. Nonetheless, we find that GPU compute resources provisioned for edge nodes are commonly under-utilized due to video content variations, subsampling and filtering at different places of a pipeline. As opposed to model and pipeline optimization, in this work, we study the problem of opportunistic data enhancement using the non-deterministic and fragmented idle GPU resources. In specific, we propose a task-specific discrimination and enhancement module and a model-aware adversarial training mechanism, providing a way to identify and transform low-quality images that are specific to a video pipeline in an accurate and efficient manner. A multi-exit model structure and a resource-aware scheduler is further developed to make online enhancement decisions and fine-grained inference execution under latency and GPU resource constraints. Experiments across multiple video analytics pipelines and datasets reveal that by judiciously allocating a small amount of idle resources on frames that tend to yield greater marginal benefits from enhancement, our system boosts DNN object detection accuracy by $7.3-11.3\%$ without incurring any latency costs.
Correction Algorithm of Sampling Effect and Its Application
Authors: Yunqi Sun, Jianfeng Zhou
Date: 2022-06-25 00:00:00

The sampling effect of the imaging acquisition device is long considered to be a modulation process of the input signal, introducing additional error into the signal acquisition process. This paper proposes a correction algorithm for the modulation process that solves the sampling effect with high accuracy. We examine the algorithm with perfect continuous Gaussian images and selected digitized images, which indicate an accuracy increase of 106 for Gaussian images, 102 at 15 times of Shannon interpolation for digitized images, and 105 at 101 times of Shannon interpolation for digitized images. The accuracy limit of the Gaussian image comes from the truncation error, while the accuracy limit of the digitized images comes from their finite resolution, which can be improved by increasing the time of Shannon interpolation.