Cooperative strategies of wireless access technologies: A game-theoretic analysis

The wireless Internet has to overcome the problem of spectrum scarcity as the number of mobile equipments could increase even by an order of magnitude in the next decade; the cooperation of mobile devices is foreseeable as a feasible solution to the problems. There exists a large body of literature on opportunistic ad hoc networking including Pelusi et al. (2006) [25], Chen et al. (2006) [26], Hui et al. (2005) [27]; however, the impact of the location of the devices on their access method selection is not yet appropriately dealt with. In this paper, we address this issue based on game-theoretic analyses. The key contribution of our work is threefold. First, we model the access method selection of mobile devices by extending the classical forwarding game with position, mobility, and availability of the devices. Second, we apply the model in game-theoretic analyses to better understand the optimal cooperation strategies in the presence of heterogeneous wireless technologies. We further extend our framework to include uncertainty. Finally, we present the applicability of the model in a cognitive radio scenario where complex structures of parameters are included.     

Fingerprint Clustering with Bounded Number of Missing Values

The problem of clustering fingerprint vectors with missing values is an interesting problem in Computational Biology that has been proposed in Figueroa et al. (J. Comput. Biol. 11(5):887–901, 2004). In this paper we show some improvements in closing the gaps between the known lower bounds and upper bounds on the approximability of variants of the biological problem. Moreover, we have studied two additional variants of the original problem proposed in Figueroa et al. (Proc. 11th Computing: The Australasian Theory Symposium (CATS), CRPIT, vol. 41, pp. 57–60, 2005). We prove that all such problems are APX-hard even when each fingerprint contains only two unknown positions and we present a greedy algorithm that has constant approximation factors for these variants. Despite the hardness of these restricted versions of the problem, we show that the general clustering problem on an unbounded number of missing values such that they occur for every fixed position of an input vector in at most one fingerprint is polynomial time solvable.     

A classification of location privacy attacks and approaches

In recent years, location-based services have become very popular, mainly driven by the availability of modern mobile devices with integrated position sensors. Prominent examples are points of interest finders or geo-social networks such as Facebook Places, Qype, and Loopt. However, providing such services with private user positions may raise serious privacy concerns if these positions are not protected adequately. Therefore, location privacy concepts become mandatory to ensure the user’s acceptance of location-based services. Many different concepts and approaches for the protection of location privacy have been described in the literature. These approaches differ with respect to the protected information and their effectiveness against different attacks. The goal of this paper is to assess the applicability and effectiveness of location privacy approaches systematically. We first identify different protection goals, namely personal information (user identity), spatial information (user position), and temporal information (identity/position + time). Secondly, we give an overview of basic principles and existing approaches to protect these privacy goals. In a third step, we classify possible attacks. Finally, we analyze existing approaches with respect to their protection goals and their ability to resist the introduced attacks.     

Privacy-Enhancing Decentralized Anonymous Credential in Smart Grids

Decentralized Anonymous Credential (DAC) has posed enormous potential in smart grids for protecting user privacy (e.g. preventing user’s daily life from being sketched out). However, the existing DAC protocols still compromise user privacy for a full list of attributes are disclosed during showing credentials. In this paper, to construct a privacy-enhancing decentralized anonymous credential (PEDAC) protocol, we first design a more efficient range proof to hide user’s attributes. Specifically, we are inspired by Camenisch et al. (ASIACRYPT 2008), but replace their adopted Boneh-Boyen signature scheme with the Chinese standard SM2 signature scheme (incorporated in the ISO/IEC 14888-3) to propose pairing-free set membership and range proof protocols. These protocols can be executed non-interactively upon the Fiat-Shamir heuristic (INDOCRYPT 2012), and then be used to construct our PEDAC protocol. By compared with the protocols of Camenisch et al. (ASIACRYPT 2008) and Poelstra et al. (FC 2018), our proposed range proofs are with less communication and computation costs and hence more practical for constructing PEDAC protocols in smart grids.     

Sharpening Occam's razor

We provide a new representation-independent formulation of Occam's razor theorem, based on Kolmogorov complexity. This new formulation allows us to: (i) obtain better sample complexity than both length-based [Blumer et al., Inform. Process. Lett. 24 (1987) 377-380] and VC-based [Blumer et al., J. ACM 35 (1989) 929-965] versions of Occam's razor theorem, in many applications; and (ii) achieve a sharper reverse of Occam's razor theorem than that of Board and Pitt [STOC, 1999, pp. 54-63]. Specifically, we weaken the assumptions made by Board and Pitt [STOC, 1999, pp. 54-63] and extend the reverse to superpolynomial running times.     

A conservative semi-Lagrangian method for oscillation-free computation of advection processes

The semi-Lagrangian method using the hybrid-cubic-rational interpolation function [M. Ida, Comput. Fluid Dyn. J. 10 (2001) 159] is modified to a conservative method by incorporating the concept discussed in [R. Tanaka et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 126 (2000) 232]. In the method due to Tanaka et al., not only a physical quantity but also its integrated quantity within a computational cell are used as dependent variables, and the mass conservation is achieved by giving a constraint to a forth-order polynomial used as an interpolation function. In the present method, a hybrid-cubic-rational function whose optimal mixing ratio was determined theoretically is employed for the interpolation, and its derivative is used for updating the physical quantity. The numerical oscillation appearing in results by the method due to Tanaka et al. is sufficiently eliminated by the use of the hybrid function.     

Convergence theorems by a new iteration process for a finite family of nonself asymptotically nonexpansive mappings with errors in Banach spaces

In this paper, we study a new iteration process for a finite family of nonself asymptotically nonexpansive mappings with errors in Banach spaces. We prove some weak and strong convergence theorems for this new iteration process. The results of this paper improve and extend the corresponding results of Chidume et al. (2003) [10], Osilike and Aniagbosor (2000) [3], Schu (1991) [4], Takahashi and Kim (1998) [9], Tian et al. (2007) [18], Wang (2006) [11], Yang (2007) [17] and others.     

A cross-layer optimization based integrated routing and grooming algorithm for green multi-granularity transport networks

With the development of IP networks and intelligent optical switch networks, the backbone network tends to be a multi-granularity transport one. In a multi-granularity transport network (MTN), due to the rapid growth of various applications, the scale and complexity of network devices are significantly enhanced. Meanwhile, to deal with bursty IP traffic, the network devices need to provide continuous services along with excessive power consumption. It has attracted wide attention from both academic and industrial communities to build a power-efficient MTN. In this paper, we design an effective node structure for MTN. Considering the power savings on both IP and optical transport layers, we propose a mathematical model to achieve a cross-layer optimization objective for power-efficient MTN. Since this optimization problem is NP-hard (Hasan et al. (2010)  [11]) and heuristic or intelligent optimization algorithms have been successfully applied to solve such kinds of problems in many engineering domains (Huang et al. (2011)  [13], Li et al. (2011)  [17] and Dong et al. (2011)  [5]), a G  reen integrated R$R$outing and Grooming algorithm based on Biogeography-Based Optimization (Simon (2008)  [23]) (GRG_BBO) is also presented. The simulation results demonstrate that, compared with the other BBO based and state-of-the-art power saving approaches, GRG_BBO improves the power savings at a rate between 2%–15% whilst the high-level multi-user QoS (Quality of Services) satisfaction degree (MQSD) is guaranteed. GRG_BBO is therefore an effective technique to build a power-efficient MTN.     

The configuration and detection strategies for information security systems

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) have become an important element of the Information Technology (IT) security architecture by identifying intrusions from both insiders and outsiders. However, security experts questioned the effectiveness of IDSs recently. The criticism known as Base Rate fallacy states that when IDS raises an alarm, the event is more likely to be benign rather than intrusive since the proportion of benign activity is significantly larger than that of intrusive activity in the user population. In response to too many false alarms, system security officers (SSO) either ignore alarm signals or turn off the IDS as the information provided by IDS is very skeptical. To alleviate this problem of IDSs, Ogut et al. (2008) [6] suggest that the firm may choose to wait to get additional signal and to make better decision about user type. One of the limitations of their model is that configuration point at which IDSs operate (the false negative and false positive rates) is exogenously given. However, the firm trying to minimize expected cost should also make a decision regarding the configuration level of IDSs since these probabilities are one of the determinants of future cost. Therefore, we extend Ogut et al. (2008) [6] by considering configuration and waiting time decisions jointly in this paper. We formulate the problem as dynamic programming model and illustrate the solution procedure for waiting time and configuration decision under optimal policy when cost of undetected hacker activity follows step wise function. As it is difficult to obtain waiting time and configuration decision under optimal policy, we illustrate the solution procedures for under myopic policy and focus on the characteristics of configuration decision under myopic policy. Our numerical analysis suggested that configuration decision is as important as waiting time decision to decrease the cost of operating IDS.     

Travelling wave and global attractivity in a competition–diffusion system with nonlocal delays

In this paper, we are concerned with a two-competition model described by a reaction–diffusion system with nonlocal delays which account for the drift of individuals to their present position from their possible positions at previous times. By using the iterative technique recently developed in Wang et al. (2006) [14], the sufficient conditions are established for the existence of travelling wave solutions connecting the semi-trivial steady state to the coexistence steady state of the considered system. When the domain is bounded, we investigate the global attractivity of the coexistence steady state of the system under homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions as well. The approach used is the upper–lower solutions and monotone iteration technique.     

Priority algorithms for graph optimization problems

We continue the study of priority or “greedy-like” algorithms as initiated in Borodin et al. (2003) [10] and as extended to graph theoretic problems in Davis and Impagliazzo (2009) [12]. Graph theoretic problems pose some modeling problems that did not exist in the original applications of Borodin et al. and Angelopoulos and Borodin (2002) [3]. Following the work of Davis and Impagliazzo, we further clarify these concepts. In the graph theoretic setting, there are several natural input formulations for a given problem and we show that priority algorithm bounds in general depend on the input formulation. We study a variety of graph problems in the context of arbitrary and restricted priority models corresponding to known “greedy algorithms”.     

Thwarting intercept-and-resend attack on Zhang’s quantum secret sharing using collective rotation noises

This work deliberately introduces collective-rotation noise into quantum states to prevent an intercept-resend attack on Zhang’s quantum secret sharing scheme over a collective-noise quantum channel (Zhang in Phys A 361:233–238, 2006). The noise recovering capability of the scheme remains intact. With this design, the quantum bit efficiency of the protocol is doubled when compared to Sun et al.’s improvement on Zhang’s scheme (Sun et al. in Opt Commun 283:181–183, 2010).     

On the small cycle transversal of planar graphs

We consider the problem of finding a k-edge transversal set that intersects all (simple) cycles of length at most s in a planar graph, where s≥3 is a constant. This problem, referred to as Small Cycle Transversal, is known to be NP-complete. We present a polynomial-time algorithm that computes a kernel of size 36s³k for Small Cycle Transversal. In order to achieve this kernel, we extend the region decomposition technique of Alber et al. (2004) [1] by considering a unique region decomposition that is defined by shortest paths. Our kernel size is a significant improvement in terms of s over the kernel size obtained under the meta-kernelization framework by Bodlaender et al. (2009) [7].     

A note on 3D orthogonal drawings with direction constrained edges

The recent interest in three-dimensional graph drawing has been motivating studies on how to extend two-dimensional techniques to higher dimensions. A common 2D approach for computing an orthogonal drawing separates the task of defining the shape of the drawing from the task of computing its coordinates. First results towards finding a three-dimensional counterpart of this approach are presented by G. Di Battista, et al. [Graph Drawing (Proc. GD'00), Lecture Notes in Comput. Sci., vol. 1984, Springer, Berlin, 2001; Theoret. Comput. Sci. 289 (2002) 897], where characterizations of orthogonal representations of paths and cycles are studied. In this paper we show that the characterization for cycles given by G. Di Battista, et al. [Theoret. Comput. Sci. 289 (2002) 897] does not immediately extend to even seemingly simple graphs.     

Numerical study of fourth-order linearized compact schemes for generalized NLS equations

The fourth-order compact approximation for the spatial second-derivative and several linearized approaches, including the time-lagging method of Zhang et al. (1995), the local-extrapolation technique of Chang et al. (1999) and the recent scheme of Dahlby et al. (2009), are considered in constructing fourth-order linearized compact difference (FLCD) schemes for generalized NLS equations. By applying a new time-lagging linearized approach, we propose a symmetric fourth-order linearized compact difference (SFLCD) scheme, which is shown to be more robust in long-time simulations of plane wave, breather, periodic traveling-wave and solitary wave solutions. Numerical experiments suggest that the SFLCD scheme is a little more accurate than some other FLCD schemes and the split-step compact difference scheme of Dehghan and Taleei (2010). Compared with the time-splitting pseudospectral method of Bao et al. (2003), our SFLCD method is more suitable for oscillating solutions or the problems with a rapidly varying potential.     

Efficient image restoration of virtual machines with reference count based rewriting and caching

Virtual machine (VM) image backups have duplicate data blocks distributed in different physical addresses, which occupy a large amount of storage space in a cloud computing platform (Choo et al.,  [1] and González-Manzano et al.,  [2]). Deduplication is a widely used technology to reduce the redundant data in a VM backup process. However, deduplication always causes the fragmentation of data blocks, which seriously affects the VM restoration performance. Current approaches often rewrite data blocks to accelerate image restoration, but rewriting could cause significant performance overhead because of frequent I/O operations. To address this issue, we have found that the reference count is a key to the fragmentation degree from a series of experiments. Thus, we propose a reference count based rewriting method to defragment VM image backups, and a caching method based on the distribution of rewritten data blocks to restore VM images. Compared with existing studies, our approach has no interfere to the deduplication process, needs no extra storage, and efficiently improves the performance of VM image restoration. We have implemented a prototype to evaluate our approach in our real cloud computing platform OnceCloud. Experimental results show that our approach can reduce about 57% of the dispersion degree of data blocks, and accelerate about 51% of the image restoration of virtual machines.     

Regression analysis of clustered interval-censored failure time data with informative cluster size

Correlated or clustered failure time data often occur in medical studies, among other fields ( [Cai and Prentice, 1995] and [Kalbfleisch and Prentice, 2002]), and sometimes such data arise together with interval censoring (Wang et al., 2006). Furthermore, the failure time of interest may be related to the cluster size. For example, Williamson et al. (2008) discussed such an example arising from a lymphatic filariasis study. A simple and common approach to the analysis of these data is to simplify or convert interval-censored data to right-censored data due to the lack of proper inference procedures for direct analysis of these data. In this paper, two procedures are presented for regression analysis of clustered failure time data that allow both interval censoring and informative cluster size. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the presented approaches and they are applied to a motivating example.     

Translational argument technology: Engineering a step change in the argument web

Following the establishment in 2006 of a representational standard for the computational handling of structures of argumentation, the Argument Interchange Format, it became possible to develop a vision for the coherent integration of multifarious services, components and tools that create, consume, navigate, analyse, evaluate and manipulate arguments and debates. This vision was the Argument Web with theoretical foundations laid by Rahwan et al. (2007), and practical engineering work described by Bex et al. (2013). Over the intervening period, the key challenge has been to demonstrate the practical and societal value of the Argument Web by taking its tools and applications to larger audiences. This paper lays out three approaches by which the Argument Web has been scaled up in this way, each in partnership with the BBC, and each with different kinds of evaluation and impact. Transitioning these technologies to large user groups paves the way for broader-scale uptake of the Argument Web and heralds the translation from lab to real-world application for a substantial research community working in argument technology.