34251654
Near-Linear Time Approximation Algorithms for Curve Simplification
We consider the problem of approximating a polygonal curve P under a given error criterion by another polygonal curve P? whose vertices are a subset of the vertices of P. The goal is to minimize the number of vertices of P? while ensuring that the error between P? and P is below a certain threshold. We consider two fundamentally different error measures -- Hausdorff and Frechet error measures. For both error criteria, we present near-linear time approximation algorithms that, given a parameter ? > 0, compute a simplified polygonal curve P? whose error is less than ? and size at most the size of an optimal simplified polygonal curve with error ?/2. We consider monotone curves in the case of Hausdorff error measure and arbitrary curves for the Frechet error measure. We present experimental results demonstrating that our algorithms are simple and fast, and produce close to optimal simplifications in practice.
21531236
Towards Unsupervised Segmentation of Semi-rigid Low-Resolution Molecular Surfaces
In this paper, we study a particular type of surface segmentation problem motivated by molecular biology applications. In particular, two input surfaces are given, coarsely modeling two different conformations of a molecule undergoing a semi-rigid deformation. The molecule consists of two subunits that move in a roughly rigid manner. The goal is to segment the input surfaces into these semi-rigid subcomponents. The problem is closely related to non-rigid surface registration problems, although considering only a special type of deformation that exists commonly in macromolecular movements (such as the popular hinge motion). We present and implement an efficient paradigm for this problem, which combines several existing and new ideas. We demonstrate the performance of our new algorithm by some preliminary experimental results in segmenting low-resolution molecular surfaces.
7748348
Shape fitting with outliers
Given a set <i>H</i> of <i>n</i> hyperplanes in <i>R<sup>d</sup></i>, we present an algorithm that <i>e</i>-approximates the extent between the top and bottom <i>k</i> levels of the arrangement of <i>H</i> in time <i>O(n + (k/e)<sup>c</sup>)</i>, where <i>c</i> is a constant depending on <i>d</i>. The algorithm relies on computing a subset of <i>H</i> of size.<i>O(k/e<sup>d-1</sup>)</i>, in near linear time, such that the <i>k</i>-level of the arrangement of the subset approximates that of the original arrangement. Using this algorithm, we propose efficient approximation algorithms for shape fitting with outliers for various shapes. This is the first algorithms to handle outliers efficiently for the shape fitting problems considered.
9419834
A Two-Dimensional Kinetic Triangulation with Near-Quadratic Topological Changes
A triangulation of a set S of points in the plane is a subdivision of the convex hull of S into triangles whose vertices are points of S. Given a set S of n points in ${\Bbb R}^2,$ each moving independently, we wish to maintain a triangulation of S. The triangulation needs to be updated periodically as the points in S move, so the goal is to maintain a triangulation with a small number of topological events, each being the insertion or deletion of an edge. We propose a kinetic data structure (KDS) that processes $n^2 2^{O(\sqrt{\log n \cdot \log \log n})}$ topological events with high probability if the trajectories of input points are algebraic curves of fixed degree. Each topological event can be processed in $O(\log n)$ time. This is the first known KDS for maintaining a triangulation that processes a near-quadratic number of topological events, and almost matches the $\Omega(n^2)$ lower bound [1]. The number of topological events can be reduced to $nk\cdot 2^{O(\sqrt{\log k \cdot \log\log n})}$ if only k of the points are moving.
6837149
Hausdorff distance under translation for points and balls
We study the shape matching problem under the Hausdorff distance and its variants. Specifically, we consider two sets A,B of balls in Rd, d=2,3, and wish to find a translation t that minimizes the Hausdorff distance between A+t, the set of all balls in A shifted by t, and B. We consider several variants of this problem. First, we extend the notion of Hausdorff distance from sets of points to sets of balls, so that each ball has to be matched with the nearest ball in the other set. We also consider the problem in the standard setting, by computing the Hausdorff distance between the unions of the two sets (as point sets). Second, we consider either all possible translates t (as is the standard approach), or consider only translations that keep the balls of A+t disjoint from those of B. We propose several exact and approximation algorithms for these problems. Since the Hausdorff distance is sensitive to outliers, we also propose efficient approximation algorithms for computing the minimum root mean-square (rms) and the minimum summed Hausdorff distance, under translation, between two point sets in Rd. In order to obtain a fast algorithm for the summed Hausdorff distance, we propose a deterministic efficient dynamic data structure for maintaining an e-approximation of the 1-median of a set of points, under insertion and deletion.
47345540
Shape Fitting with Outliers
Given a set $\mathcal{H}$ of n hyperplanes in ${\Bbb R}^d$, we present an algorithm that $\eps$-approximates the extent between the top and bottom k levels of the arrangement of $\mathcal{H}$ in time $O(n + (k/\eps)^c)$, where c is a constant depending on d. The algorithm relies on computing a subset of $\mathcal{H}$ of size $O(k/\eps^{d-1})$, in near linear time, such that the k-level of the arrangement of the subset approximates that of the original arrangement. Using this algorithm, we propose efficient approximation algorithms for shape fitting with outliers for various shapes. These are the first algorithms to handle outliers efficiently for the shape fitting problems considered.
36989079
Sub-picture: ROI coding and unequal error protection
Region-of-interest coding and unequal error protection are two important tools in video communication systems to improve the received visual quality. One common property of the two techniques is that unequal coding or transmission is applied to improve the quality of the most important parts of images. The proposed sub-picture coding technique facilitates both region-of-interest coding and unequal error protection by partitioning images to regions of interest and separating the corresponding coded data units from each other. Simulation results show that the overall subjective quality is considerably improved compared to the conventional coding schemes.
18269009
Maximum Flows and Critical Vertices in AND/OR Graphs
We will study this problem and present an algorithm for finding the minimum-time-cost solution graph in an AND/OR graph. We will also study the following problems which often appear in industry when using AND/OR graphs to model manufacturing processes or to model problem solving processes: finding maximum (additive and nonadditive) flows and critical vertices in an AND/OR graph. Though there are well known polynomial time algorithms for the corresponding problems in the traditional graph theory, we will show that generally it is NP-hard to find a non-additive maximum flow in an AND/OR graph, and it is both NP-hard and coNP-hard to find a set of critical vertices in an AND/OR graph. We will also present a polynomial time algorithm for finding a maximum additive flow in an AND/OR graph, and discuss the relative complexity of these problems.
16244688
Formal Description of Time Management in Real-Time Operating Systems
This paper describes the formal specification of the time management subsystem of a real-time operating system. Real-time process algebra (RTPA) is adopted to formally specify the system. The architecture, static behaviors, and dynamic behaviors of a CPU time manager are systematically specified that form an abstract model of the system. The formal specifications are implemented in C, on which the system performance can be tested and verified
15335137
Automated Web Patrol with Strider HoneyMonkeys: Finding Web Sites That Exploit Browser Vulnerabilities
Internet attacks that use malicious web sites to install malware programs by exploiting browser vulnerabilities are a serious emerging threat. In response, we have developed an automated web patrol system to automatically identify and monitor these malicious sites. We describe the design and implementation of the Strider HoneyMonkey Exploit Detection System, which consists of a pipeline of “monkey programs” running possibly vulnerable browsers on virtual machines with different patch levels and patrolling the Web to seek out and classify web sites that exploit browser vulnerabilities. Within the first month of utilizing this system, we identified 752 unique URLs hosted on 288 web sites that could successfully exploit unpatched Windows XP machines. The system automatically constructed topology graphs based on traffic redirection to capture the relationship between the exploit sites. This allowed us to identify several major players who are responsible for a large number of exploit pages. By monitoring these 752 exploit-URLs on a daily basis, we discovered a malicious web site that was performing zero-day exploits of the unpatched javaprxy.dll vulnerability and was operating behind 25 exploit-URLs. It was confirmed as the first “inthe-wild”, zero-day exploit of this vulnerability that was reported to the Microsoft Security Response Center. Additionally, by scanning the most popular one million URLs as classified by a search engine, we found over seven hundred exploit-URLs, many of which serve popular content related to celebrities, song lyrics, wallpapers, video game cheats, and wrestling.
5326806
Modeling for Optimal Probability Prediction
We present a general modeling method for optimal probability prediction over future observations, in which model dimensionality is determined as a natural by-product. This new method yields several estimators, and we establish theoretically that they are optimal (either overall or under stated restrictions) when the number of free parameters is infinite. As a case study, we investigate the problem of fitting logistic models in finite-sample situations. Simulation results on both artificial and practical datasets are supportive.