25,521 research outputs found
Optimal Ramp Schemes and Related Combinatorial Objects
In 1996, Jackson and Martin proved that a strong ideal ramp scheme is
equivalent to an orthogonal array. However, there was no good characterization
of ideal ramp schemes that are not strong. Here we show the equivalence of
ideal ramp schemes to a new variant of orthogonal arrays that we term augmented
orthogonal arrays. We give some constructions for these new kinds of arrays,
and, as a consequence, we also provide parameter situations where ideal ramp
schemes exist but strong ideal ramp schemes do not exist
A unified approach to combinatorial key predistribution schemes for sensor networks
There have been numerous recent proposals for key predistribution schemes for wireless sensor networks based on various types of combinatorial structures such as designs and codes. Many of these schemes have very similar properties and are analysed in a similar manner. We seek to provide a unified framework to study these kinds of schemes. To do so, we define a new, general class of designs, termed âpartially balanced t-designsâ, that is sufficiently general that it encompasses almost all of the designs that have been proposed for combinatorial key predistribution schemes. However, this new class of designs still has sufficient structure that we are able to derive general formulas for the metrics of the resulting key predistribution schemes. These metrics can be evaluated for a particular scheme simply by substituting appropriate parameters of the underlying combinatorial structure into our general formulas. We also compare various classes of schemes based on different designs, and point out that some existing proposed schemes are in fact identical, even though their descriptions may seem different. We believe that our general framework should facilitate the analysis of proposals for combinatorial key predistribution schemes and their comparison with existing schemes, and also allow researchers to easily evaluate which scheme or schemes present the best combination of performance metrics for a given application scenario
Derandomization and Group Testing
The rapid development of derandomization theory, which is a fundamental area
in theoretical computer science, has recently led to many surprising
applications outside its initial intention. We will review some recent such
developments related to combinatorial group testing. In its most basic setting,
the aim of group testing is to identify a set of "positive" individuals in a
population of items by taking groups of items and asking whether there is a
positive in each group.
In particular, we will discuss explicit constructions of optimal or
nearly-optimal group testing schemes using "randomness-conducting" functions.
Among such developments are constructions of error-correcting group testing
schemes using randomness extractors and condensers, as well as threshold group
testing schemes from lossless condensers.Comment: Invited Paper in Proceedings of 48th Annual Allerton Conference on
Communication, Control, and Computing, 201
Forman-Ricci flow for change detection in large dynamic data sets
We present a viable solution to the challenging question of change detection
in complex networks inferred from large dynamic data sets. Building on Forman's
discretization of the classical notion of Ricci curvature, we introduce a novel
geometric method to characterize different types of real-world networks with an
emphasis on peer-to-peer networks. Furthermore we adapt the classical Ricci
flow that already proved to be a powerful tool in image processing and
graphics, to the case of undirected and weighted networks. The application of
the proposed method on peer-to-peer networks yields insights into topological
properties and the structure of their underlying data.Comment: Conference paper, accepted at ICICS 2016. (Updated version
On the optimization of bipartite secret sharing schemes
Optimizing the ratio between the maximum length of the shares and the length of the secret value in secret sharing schemes for general access structures is an extremely difficult and long-standing open problem. In this paper, we study it for bipartite access structures, in which the set of participants is divided in two parts, and all participants in each part play an equivalent role. We focus on the search of lower bounds by using a special class of polymatroids that is introduced here, the tripartite ones. We present a method based on linear programming to compute, for every given bipartite access structure, the best lower bound that can be obtained by this combinatorial method. In addition, we obtain some general lower bounds that improve the previously known ones, and we construct optimal secret sharing schemes for a family of bipartite access structures.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Efficiently Decodable Non-Adaptive Threshold Group Testing
We consider non-adaptive threshold group testing for identification of up to
defective items in a set of items, where a test is positive if it
contains at least defective items, and negative otherwise.
The defective items can be identified using tests with
probability at least for any or tests with probability 1. The decoding time is
. This result significantly improves the
best known results for decoding non-adaptive threshold group testing:
for probabilistic decoding, where
, and for deterministic decoding
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