A Nonlocal Method with Modified Initial Cost and Multiple Weight for Stereo Matching

This paper presents a new nonlocal cost aggregation method for stereo matching. The minimum spanning tree (MST) employs color difference as the sole component to build the weight function, which often leads to failure in achieving satisfactory results in some boundary regions with similar color distributions. In this paper, a modified initial cost is used. The erroneous pixels are often caused by two pixels from object and background, which have similar color distribution. And then inner color correlation is employed as a new component of the weight function, which is determined to effectively eliminate them. Besides, the segmentation method of the tree structure is also improved. Thus, a more robust and reasonable tree structure is developed. The proposed method was tested on Middlebury datasets. As can be expected, experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the classical nonlocal methods

Morphological processing of stereoscopic image superimpositions for disparity map estimation

This paper deals with the problem of depth map computation from a pair of rectified stereo images and presents a novel solution based on the morphological processing of disparity space volumes. The reader is guided through the four steps composing the proposed method: the segmentation of stereo images, the diffusion of superimposition costs controlled by the segmentation, the resulting generation of a sparse disparity map which finally drives the estimation of the dense disparity map. An objective evaluation of the algorithm's features and qualities is provided and is accompanied by the results obtained on Middlebury's 2014 stereo database

Hierarchical Over-the-Air Federated Edge Learning

Federated learning (FL) over wireless communication channels, specifically, over-the-air (OTA) model aggregation framework is considered. In OTA wireless setups, the adverse channel effects can be alleviated by increasing the number of receive antennas at the parameter server (PS), which performs model aggregation. However, the performance of OTA FL is severely limited by the presence of mobile users (MUs) located far away from the PS. In this paper, to mitigate this limitation, we propose hierarchical over-the-air federated learning (HOTAFL), which utilizes intermediary servers (IS) to form clusters near MUs. We provide a convergence analysis for the proposed setup, and demonstrate through experimental results that local aggregation in each cluster before global aggregation leads to a better performance and faster convergence than OTA FL

Unsupervised Graph-based Rank Aggregation for Improved Retrieval

This paper presents a robust and comprehensive graph-based rank aggregation approach, used to combine results of isolated ranker models in retrieval tasks. The method follows an unsupervised scheme, which is independent of how the isolated ranks are formulated. Our approach is able to combine arbitrary models, defined in terms of different ranking criteria, such as those based on textual, image or hybrid content representations. We reformulate the ad-hoc retrieval problem as a document retrieval based on fusion graphs, which we propose as a new unified representation model capable of merging multiple ranks and expressing inter-relationships of retrieval results automatically. By doing so, we claim that the retrieval system can benefit from learning the manifold structure of datasets, thus leading to more effective results. Another contribution is that our graph-based aggregation formulation, unlike existing approaches, allows for encapsulating contextual information encoded from multiple ranks, which can be directly used for ranking, without further computations and post-processing steps over the graphs. Based on the graphs, a novel similarity retrieval score is formulated using an efficient computation of minimum common subgraphs. Finally, another benefit over existing approaches is the absence of hyperparameters. A comprehensive experimental evaluation was conducted considering diverse well-known public datasets, composed of textual, image, and multimodal documents. Performed experiments demonstrate that our method reaches top performance, yielding better effectiveness scores than state-of-the-art baseline methods and promoting large gains over the rankers being fused, thus demonstrating the successful capability of the proposal in representing queries based on a unified graph-based model of rank fusions

Exécutions de requêtes respectueuses de la vie privée par utilisation de composants matériels sécurisés

Current applications, from complex sensor systems (e.g. quantified self) to online e-markets acquire vast quantities of personal information which usually end-up on central servers. This massive amount of personal data, the new oil, represents an unprecedented potential for applications and business. However, centralizing and processing all one's data in a single server, where they are exposed to prying eyes, poses a major problem with regards to privacy concern.Conversely, decentralized architectures helping individuals keep full control of their data, but they complexify global treatments and queries, impeding the development of innovative services.In this thesis, we aim at reconciling individual's privacy on one side and global benefits for the community and business perspectives on the other side. It promotes the idea of pushing the security to secure hardware devices controlling the data at the place of their acquisition. Thanks to these tangible physical elements of trust, secure distributed querying protocols can reestablish the capacity to perform global computations, such as SQL aggregates, without revealing any sensitive information to central servers.This thesis studies the subset of SQL queries without external joins and shows how to secure their execution in the presence of honest-but-curious attackers. It also discusses how the resulting querying protocols can be integrated in a concrete decentralized architecture. Cost models and experiments on SQL/AA, our distributed prototype running on real tamper-resistant hardware, demonstrate that this approach can scale to nationwide applications.Les applications actuelles, des systèmes de capteurs complexes (par exemple auto quantifiée) aux applications de e-commerce, acquièrent de grandes quantités d'informations personnelles qui sont habituellement stockées sur des serveurs centraux. Cette quantité massive de données personnelles, considéré comme le nouveau pétrole, représente un important potentiel pour les applications et les entreprises. Cependant, la centralisation et le traitement de toutes les données sur un serveur unique, où elles sont exposées aux indiscrétions de son gestionnaire, posent un problème majeur en ce qui concerne la vie privée.Inversement, les architectures décentralisées aident les individus à conserver le plein de contrôle sur leurs données, toutefois leurs traitements en particulier le calcul de requêtes globales deviennent complexes.Dans cette thèse, nous visons à concilier la vie privée de l'individu et l'exploitation de ces données, qui présentent des avantages manifestes pour la communauté (comme des études statistiques) ou encore des perspectives d'affaires. Nous promouvons l'idée de sécuriser l'acquisition des données par l'utilisation de matériel sécurisé. Grâce à ces éléments matériels tangibles de confiance, sécuriser des protocoles d'interrogation distribués permet d'effectuer des calculs globaux, tels que les agrégats SQL, sans révéler d'informations sensibles à des serveurs centraux.Cette thèse étudie le sous-groupe de requêtes SQL sans jointures et montre comment sécuriser leur exécution en présence d'attaquants honnêtes-mais-curieux. Cette thèse explique également comment les protocoles d'interrogation qui en résultent peuvent être intégrés concrètement dans une architecture décentralisée. Nous démontrons que notre approche est viable et peut passer à l'échelle d'applications de la taille d'un pays par un modèle de coût et des expériences réelles sur notre prototype, SQL/AA