Machine Learning in Wireless Sensor Networks: Algorithms, Strategies, and Applications

Wireless sensor networks monitor dynamic environments that change rapidly over time. This dynamic behavior is either caused by external factors or initiated by the system designers themselves. To adapt to such conditions, sensor networks often adopt machine learning techniques to eliminate the need for unnecessary redesign. Machine learning also inspires many practical solutions that maximize resource utilization and prolong the lifespan of the network. In this paper, we present an extensive literature review over the period 2002-2013 of machine learning methods that were used to address common issues in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The advantages and disadvantages of each proposed algorithm are evaluated against the corresponding problem. We also provide a comparative guide to aid WSN designers in developing suitable machine learning solutions for their specific application challenges.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

A taxonomy framework for unsupervised outlier detection techniques for multi-type data sets

The term "outlier" can generally be defined as an observation that is significantly different from the other values in a data set. The outliers may be instances of error or indicate events. The task of outlier detection aims at identifying such outliers in order to improve the analysis of data and further discover interesting and useful knowledge about unusual events within numerous applications domains. In this paper, we report on contemporary unsupervised outlier detection techniques for multiple types of data sets and provide a comprehensive taxonomy framework and two decision trees to select the most suitable technique based on data set. Furthermore, we highlight the advantages, disadvantages and performance issues of each class of outlier detection techniques under this taxonomy framework

Steganographer Identification

Conventional steganalysis detects the presence of steganography within single objects. In the real-world, we may face a complex scenario that one or some of multiple users called actors are guilty of using steganography, which is typically defined as the Steganographer Identification Problem (SIP). One might use the conventional steganalysis algorithms to separate stego objects from cover objects and then identify the guilty actors. However, the guilty actors may be lost due to a number of false alarms. To deal with the SIP, most of the state-of-the-arts use unsupervised learning based approaches. In their solutions, each actor holds multiple digital objects, from which a set of feature vectors can be extracted. The well-defined distances between these feature sets are determined to measure the similarity between the corresponding actors. By applying clustering or outlier detection, the most suspicious actor(s) will be judged as the steganographer(s). Though the SIP needs further study, the existing works have good ability to identify the steganographer(s) when non-adaptive steganographic embedding was applied. In this chapter, we will present foundational concepts and review advanced methodologies in SIP. This chapter is self-contained and intended as a tutorial introducing the SIP in the context of media steganography.Comment: A tutorial with 30 page

Robust Correlation Clustering

In this paper, we introduce and study the Robust-Correlation-Clustering problem: given a graph G = (V,E) where every edge is either labeled + or - (denoting similar or dissimilar pairs of vertices), and a parameter m, the goal is to delete a set D of m vertices, and partition the remaining vertices V D into clusters to minimize the cost of the clustering, which is the sum of the number of + edges with end-points in different clusters and the number of - edges with end-points in the same cluster. This generalizes the classical Correlation-Clustering problem which is the special case when m = 0. Correlation clustering is useful when we have (only) qualitative information about the similarity or dissimilarity of pairs of points, and Robust-Correlation-Clustering equips this model with the capability to handle noise in datasets. In this work, we present a constant-factor bi-criteria algorithm for Robust-Correlation-Clustering on complete graphs (where our solution is O(1)-approximate w.r.t the cost while however discarding O(1) m points as outliers), and also complement this by showing that no finite approximation is possible if we do not violate the outlier budget. Our algorithm is very simple in that it first does a simple LP-based pre-processing to delete O(m) vertices, and subsequently runs a particular Correlation-Clustering algorithm ACNAlg [Ailon et al., 2005] on the residual instance. We then consider general graphs, and show (O(log n), O(log^2 n)) bi-criteria algorithms while also showing a hardness of alpha_MC on both the cost and the outlier violation, where alpha_MC is the lower bound for the Minimum-Multicut problem