38052408
Towards a practical, secure, and very large scale online election
We propose a practical and secure electronic voting protocol for large-scale online elections. Our protocol satisfies a large set of important criteria that has never been put together in a single protocol before. Among all electronic voting schemes in the literature, Sensus, a security-conscious electronic voting protocol proposed by Cranor and Cytron (1997), satisfies most of our criteria. Sensus has been implemented and used in mock elections. However, Sensus suffers from several major drawbacks. For instance, we show that even if all voters follow the Sensus protocol honestly, some voters' votes may still be replaced with different votes without being detected. Our protocol overcomes these drawbacks.
32837558
On average P vs. average NP
Structures of polynomial-time computable distributions and polynomial-time many-one reductions on randomized decision problems are investigated. The scope is widened from the most studied class DNP (distributional-NP) to the class ANP (average-NP), which consists of randomized decision problems accepted by nondeterministic Turing machines in average polynomial time. Results indicate that the structures of average-case complexity classes are very different from their counterparts in worst-case complexity due to the complex structures of probability distributions and distribution functions.<<ETX>>
35286842
On the NP-Isomorphism Problem with Respect to Random Instances
This paper takes a new approach to studying the NP-isomorphism problem initiated by Berman and Hartmanis. We consider polynomial-time computable and invertible bijections among NP-complete sets that preserve the underlying natural distributions on random instances. We show that there are natural NP-complete problems which are not polynomially isomorphic when instances are chosen at random because no polynomial-time isomorphisms can preserve the underlying natural distributions on instances of these problems, On the other hand, we show that all the known average-case NP-complete problems under many-one reductions are polynomially isomorphic with respect to their distributions on random instances. Simple and accessible proofs to the known average-case NP-complete problems are presented when establishing the isomorphism result. New average-case NP-complete problems are also presented.
17726002
Average-case completeness of a word problem for groups
This paper presents a bounded word problem for groups whose random instances are hard on average. The problem is to decide, when given a finitely presented group G, words ~, y, z, and an integer k, whether (Z–lyZ)Z can be obtained from Z(x–l yz) in G using elementary Tietze transformations for at most k times. We show that the problem is average-case NP-complete when instances are chosen at random under a uniform distribution. NP-completeness of more general bounded word problems for groups is shown as well.
31564513
Packing of Unequal Spheres and Automated Radiosurgical Treatment Planning
We study an optimization problem of packing unequal spheres into a three-dimensional (3D) bounded region in connection with radiosurgical treatment planning. Given an input (R, V, S, L), where R is a 3D bounded region, V a positive integer, S a multiset of spheres, and L a location constraint on spheres, we want to find a packing of R using the minimum number of spheres in S such that the covered volume is at least V; the location constraint L is satisfied; and the number of points on the boundary of R that are touched by spheres is maximized. Such a packing arrangement corresponds to an optimal radiosurgical treatment planning. Finding an optimal solution to the problem, however, is computationally intractable. In particular, we show that this optimization problem and several related problems are NP-hard. Hence, some form of approximations is needed. One approach is to consider a simplified problem under the assumption that spheres of arbitrary (integral) diameters are available with unlimited supply, and there are no location constraints. This approach has met with certain success in medical applications using a dynamic programming algorithm (Bourland and Wu, 1996; Wu, 1996). We propose in this paper an improvement to the algorithm that can greatly reduce its computation cost.
206565969
Immunity of Complete Problems
Abstract Two necessary and sufficient conditions for all E -complete sets to contain dense P subsets are shown. We then prove that every ≤ p m -hard for E set and its complement contain dense E ∩UP subsets. As a corollary, every NE -complete set and its complement contain dense E ∩UP subsets.
11520313
Linear Vertex Arboricity, Independence Number and Clique Cover Number
The linear vertex-arboricity of a graph G is defined to the minimum number of subsets into which the vertex-set G can be partitioned so that every subset induces a linear forest. In this paper, we give the upper and lower bounds for sum and product of linear vertex-arboricity with independence number and with clique cover number respectively. All of these bounds are sharp.
2366018
Constrained texture synthesis by scalable sub-patch algorithm
In this paper, we propose a novel scalable sub-patch algorithm for texture synthesis. Texture synthesis is an important research topic in computer graphics and image processing. We present an efficient algorithm which can paste a patch each time without boundary processing technique. In particular, the proposed sub-patch algorithm can be used in constrained texture synthesis to fill the large lost region. On the other hand, the searching neighborhood pixels can be changed due to different patch size in image reconstruction. The comparison of previous algorithms is also provided in this paper. We present a first algorithm used in constrained texture synthesis by regular synthesizing order
9192804
Efficient and robust streaming provisioning in VPNs
Today, most large companies maintain virtual private networks (VPNs) to connect their remote locations into a single secure network. VPNs can be quite large covering more than 1000 locations and in most cases use standard Internet protocols and services. Such VPNs are implemented using a diverse set of technologies such as Frame Relay, MPLS, or IPSEC to achieve the goal of privacy and performance isolation from the public Internet.Using VPNs to distribute live content has recently received tremendous interest. For example, a VPN could be used to broadcast a CEO-employee town hall meeting. To distribute this type of content economically without overloading the network, the deployment of streaming caches or splitters is most likely required.In this paper, we address the problem of optimally placing such streaming splitters or caches to broadcast to a given set of VPN endpoints under the constraints typically found within a VPN. In particular, we introduce an efficient algorithm with complexity O(V), V being the number of routers in the VPN. This guarantees the optimal cache placement if interception is used for redirection. We prove that the general problem is NP-hard and introduce multiple heuristics for efficient and robust cache placement suitable under different constraints. At the expense of increased implementation complexity, each heuristic solution provides additional saving in the number of caches required. We evaluate proposed solutions using extensive simulations. In particular, we show our flow-based solution is very close to the optimal.
19002258
Reconstructing manifold and non-manifold surfaces from point clouds
This paper presents a novel approach for surface reconstruction from point clouds. The proposed technique is general in the sense that it naturally handles both manifold and non-manifold surfaces, providing a consistent way for reconstructing closed surfaces as well as surfaces with boundaries. It is also robust in the presence of noise, irregular sampling and surface gaps. Furthermore, it is fast, parallelizable and easy to implement because it is based on simple local operations. In this approach, surface reconstruction consists of three major steps: first, the space containing the point cloud is subdivided, creating a voxel representation. Then, a voxel surface is computed using gap filling and topological thinning operations. Finally, the resulting voxel surface is converted into a polygonal mesh. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by reconstructing polygonal models from range scans of real objects as well as from synthetic data.
8517678
Camera phone based motion sensing: interaction techniques, applications and performance study
This paper presents TinyMotion, a pure software approach for detecting a mobile phone user's hand movement in real time by analyzing image sequences captured by the built-in camera. We present the design and implementation of TinyMotion and several interactive applications based on TinyMotion. Through both an informal evaluation and a formal 17-participant user study, we found that 1. TinyMotion can detect camera movement reliably under most background and illumination conditions. 2. Target acquisition tasks based on TinyMotion follow Fitts' law and Fitts law parameters can be used for TinyMotion based pointing performance measurement. 3. The users can use Vision TiltText, a TinyMotion enabled input method, to enter sentences faster than MultiTap with a few minutes of practicing. 4. Using camera phone as a handwriting capture device and performing large vocabulary, multilingual real time handwriting recognition on the cell phone are feasible. 5. TinyMotion based gaming is enjoyable and immediately available for the current generation camera phones. We also report user experiences and problems with TinyMotion based interaction as resources for future design and development of mobile interfaces.