18,259 research outputs found
Fundamental Limits on Communication for Oblivious Updates in Storage Networks
In distributed storage systems, storage nodes intermittently go offline for
numerous reasons. On coming back online, nodes need to update their contents to
reflect any modifications to the data in the interim. In this paper, we
consider a setting where no information regarding modified data needs to be
logged in the system. In such a setting, a 'stale' node needs to update its
contents by downloading data from already updated nodes, while neither the
stale node nor the updated nodes have any knowledge as to which data symbols
are modified and what their value is. We investigate the fundamental limits on
the amount of communication necessary for such an "oblivious" update process.
We first present a generic lower bound on the amount of communication that is
necessary under any storage code with a linear encoding (while allowing
non-linear update protocols). This lower bound is derived under a set of
extremely weak conditions, giving all updated nodes access to the entire
modified data and the stale node access to the entire stale data as side
information. We then present codes and update algorithms that are optimal in
that they meet this lower bound. Next, we present a lower bound for an
important subclass of codes, that of linear Maximum-Distance-Separable (MDS)
codes. We then present an MDS code construction and an associated update
algorithm that meets this lower bound. These results thus establish the
capacity of oblivious updates in terms of the communication requirements under
these settings.Comment: IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) 201
High Bandwidth Atomic Magnetometery with Continuous Quantum Non-demolition Measurements
We describe an experimental study of spin-projection noise in a high
sensitivity alkali-metal magnetometer. We demonstrate a four-fold improvement
in the measurement bandwidth of the magnetometer using continuous quantum
non-demolition (QND) measurements. Operating in the scalar mode with a
measurement volume of 2 cm^3 we achieve magnetic field sensitivity of 22
fT/Hz^(1/2) and a bandwidth of 1.9 kHz with a spin polarization of only 1%. Our
experimental arrangement is naturally back-action evading and can be used to
realize sub-fT sensitivity with a highly polarized spin-squeezed atomic vapor.Comment: 4 page
Interference Alignment in Regenerating Codes for Distributed Storage: Necessity and Code Constructions
Regenerating codes are a class of recently developed codes for distributed
storage that, like Reed-Solomon codes, permit data recovery from any arbitrary
k of n nodes. However regenerating codes possess in addition, the ability to
repair a failed node by connecting to any arbitrary d nodes and downloading an
amount of data that is typically far less than the size of the data file. This
amount of download is termed the repair bandwidth. Minimum storage regenerating
(MSR) codes are a subclass of regenerating codes that require the least amount
of network storage; every such code is a maximum distance separable (MDS) code.
Further, when a replacement node stores data identical to that in the failed
node, the repair is termed as exact.
The four principal results of the paper are (a) the explicit construction of
a class of MDS codes for d = n-1 >= 2k-1 termed the MISER code, that achieves
the cut-set bound on the repair bandwidth for the exact-repair of systematic
nodes, (b) proof of the necessity of interference alignment in exact-repair MSR
codes, (c) a proof showing the impossibility of constructing linear,
exact-repair MSR codes for d < 2k-3 in the absence of symbol extension, and (d)
the construction, also explicit, of MSR codes for d = k+1. Interference
alignment (IA) is a theme that runs throughout the paper: the MISER code is
built on the principles of IA and IA is also a crucial component to the
non-existence proof for d < 2k-3. To the best of our knowledge, the
constructions presented in this paper are the first, explicit constructions of
regenerating codes that achieve the cut-set bound.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figures, submitted to the IEEE Transactions on
Information Theory;v3 - The title has been modified to better reflect the
contributions of the submission. The paper is extensively revised with
several carefully constructed figures and example
Explicit Construction of Optimal Exact Regenerating Codes for Distributed Storage
Erasure coding techniques are used to increase the reliability of distributed
storage systems while minimizing storage overhead. Also of interest is
minimization of the bandwidth required to repair the system following a node
failure. In a recent paper, Wu et al. characterize the tradeoff between the
repair bandwidth and the amount of data stored per node. They also prove the
existence of regenerating codes that achieve this tradeoff.
In this paper, we introduce Exact Regenerating Codes, which are regenerating
codes possessing the additional property of being able to duplicate the data
stored at a failed node. Such codes require low processing and communication
overheads, making the system practical and easy to maintain. Explicit
construction of exact regenerating codes is provided for the minimum bandwidth
point on the storage-repair bandwidth tradeoff, relevant to
distributed-mail-server applications. A subspace based approach is provided and
shown to yield necessary and sufficient conditions on a linear code to possess
the exact regeneration property as well as prove the uniqueness of our
construction.
Also included in the paper, is an explicit construction of regenerating codes
for the minimum storage point for parameters relevant to storage in
peer-to-peer systems. This construction supports a variable number of nodes and
can handle multiple, simultaneous node failures. All constructions given in the
paper are of low complexity, requiring low field size in particular.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, in the Proceedings of Allerton Conference on
Communication, Control and Computing, September 200
Gas phase hydrogen permeation in alpha titanium and carbon steels
Commercially pure titanium and heats of Armco ingot iron and steels containing from 0.008-1.23 w/oC were annealed or normalized and machined into hollow cylinders. Coefficients of diffusion for alpha-Ti and alpha-Fe were determined by the lag-time technique. Steady state permeation experiments yield first power pressure dependence for alpha-Ti and Sievert's law square root dependence for Armco iron and carbon steels. As in the case of diffusion, permeation data confirm that alpha-titanium is subject to at least partial phase boundary reaction control while the steels are purely diffusion controlled. The permeation rate in steels also decreases as the carbon content increases. As a consequence of Sievert's law, the computed hydrogen solubility decreases as the carbon content increases. This decreases in explained in terms of hydrogen trapping at carbide interfaces. Oxidizing and nitriding the surfaces of alpha-titanium membranes result in a decrease in the permeation rate for such treatment on the gas inlet surfaces but resulted in a slight increase in the rate for such treatment on the gas outlet surfaces. This is explained in terms of a discontinuous TiH2 layer
Computer Mapping of Water Quality in Saginaw Bay with LANDSAT Digital Data
The author has identified the following significant results. LANDSAT digital data and ground truth measurements for Saginaw Bay (Lake Huron), Michigan, for 31 July 1975 were correlated by stepwise linear regression and the resulting equations used to estimate invisible water quality parameters in nonsampled areas. Chloride, conductivity, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, total phosphorus, and chlorophyll a were best correlated with the ratio of LANDSAT Band 4 to Band 5. Temperature and Secchi depth correlate best with Band 5
Optimal Timer Based Selection Schemes
Timer-based mechanisms are often used to help a given (sink) node select the
best helper node among many available nodes. Specifically, a node transmits a
packet when its timer expires, and the timer value is a monotone non-increasing
function of its local suitability metric. The best node is selected
successfully if no other node's timer expires within a 'vulnerability' window
after its timer expiry, and so long as the sink can hear the available nodes.
In this paper, we show that the optimal metric-to-timer mapping that (i)
maximizes the probability of success or (ii) minimizes the average selection
time subject to a minimum constraint on the probability of success, maps the
metric into a set of discrete timer values. We specify, in closed-form, the
optimal scheme as a function of the maximum selection duration, the
vulnerability window, and the number of nodes. An asymptotic characterization
of the optimal scheme turns out to be elegant and insightful. For any
probability distribution function of the metric, the optimal scheme is
scalable, distributed, and performs much better than the popular inverse metric
timer mapping. It even compares favorably with splitting-based selection, when
the latter's feedback overhead is accounted for.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, submitted to IEEE Transactions on
Communications, uses stackrel.st
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