357 research outputs found
Mini-Workshop: Entropy, Information and Control
This mini-workshop was motivated by the emerging field of networked control, which combines concepts from the disciplines of control theory, information theory and dynamical systems. Many current approaches to networked control simplify one or more of these three aspects, for instance by assuming no dynamical disturbances, or noiseless communication channels, or linear dynamics. The aim of this meeting was to approach a common understanding of the relevant results and techniques from each discipline in order to study the major, multi-disciplinary problems in networked control
Patterns of Scalable Bayesian Inference
Datasets are growing not just in size but in complexity, creating a demand
for rich models and quantification of uncertainty. Bayesian methods are an
excellent fit for this demand, but scaling Bayesian inference is a challenge.
In response to this challenge, there has been considerable recent work based on
varying assumptions about model structure, underlying computational resources,
and the importance of asymptotic correctness. As a result, there is a zoo of
ideas with few clear overarching principles.
In this paper, we seek to identify unifying principles, patterns, and
intuitions for scaling Bayesian inference. We review existing work on utilizing
modern computing resources with both MCMC and variational approximation
techniques. From this taxonomy of ideas, we characterize the general principles
that have proven successful for designing scalable inference procedures and
comment on the path forward
Asynchronous Gossip for Averaging and Spectral Ranking
We consider two variants of the classical gossip algorithm. The first variant
is a version of asynchronous stochastic approximation. We highlight a
fundamental difficulty associated with the classical asynchronous gossip
scheme, viz., that it may not converge to a desired average, and suggest an
alternative scheme based on reinforcement learning that has guaranteed
convergence to the desired average. We then discuss a potential application to
a wireless network setting with simultaneous link activation constraints. The
second variant is a gossip algorithm for distributed computation of the
Perron-Frobenius eigenvector of a nonnegative matrix. While the first variant
draws upon a reinforcement learning algorithm for an average cost controlled
Markov decision problem, the second variant draws upon a reinforcement learning
algorithm for risk-sensitive control. We then discuss potential applications of
the second variant to ranking schemes, reputation networks, and principal
component analysis.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Minor revisio
Information-theoretic analysis of MIMO channel sounding
The large majority of commercially available multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) radio channel measurement devices (sounders) is based on time-division
multiplexed switching (TDMS) of a single transmit/receive radio-frequency chain
into the elements of a transmit/receive antenna array. While being
cost-effective, such a solution can cause significant measurement errors due to
phase noise and frequency offset in the local oscillators. In this paper, we
systematically analyze the resulting errors and show that, in practice,
overestimation of channel capacity by several hundred percent can occur.
Overestimation is caused by phase noise (and to a lesser extent frequency
offset) leading to an increase of the MIMO channel rank. Our analysis
furthermore reveals that the impact of phase errors is, in general, most
pronounced if the physical channel has low rank (typical for line-of-sight or
poor scattering scenarios). The extreme case of a rank-1 physical channel is
analyzed in detail. Finally, we present measurement results obtained from a
commercially employed TDMS-based MIMO channel sounder. In the light of the
findings of this paper, the results obtained through MIMO channel measurement
campaigns using TDMS-based channel sounders should be interpreted with great
care.Comment: 99 pages, 14 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information
Theor
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