On the Hardness of Entropy Minimization and Related Problems

We investigate certain optimization problems for Shannon information measures, namely, minimization of joint and conditional entropies $H(X,Y)$, $H(X|Y)$, $H(Y|X)$, and maximization of mutual information $I(X;Y)$, over convex regions. When restricted to the so-called transportation polytopes (sets of distributions with fixed marginals), very simple proofs of NP-hardness are obtained for these problems because in that case they are all equivalent, and their connection to the well-known \textsc{Subset sum} and \textsc{Partition} problems is revealed. The computational intractability of the more general problems over arbitrary polytopes is then a simple consequence. Further, a simple class of polytopes is shown over which the above problems are not equivalent and their complexity differs sharply, namely, minimization of $H(X,Y)$ and $H(Y|X)$ is trivial, while minimization of $H(X|Y)$ and maximization of $I(X;Y)$ are strongly NP-hard problems. Finally, two new (pseudo)metrics on the space of discrete probability distributions are introduced, based on the so-called variation of information quantity, and NP-hardness of their computation is shown.Comment: IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW) 201

New algorithm for moving object detection

A new, simple, fast and effective method for moving object detection in outdoor environments, invariant to extreme illumination changes is presented as an improvement to the shading model method described in [8]. It is based on an analytical parameter introduced in the shading model, background updating technique and window processing

Interconnected Government Services: An Approach toward Smart Government

The rapid expansion of new technologies and services significantly affects society’s development and initiates significant changes within public administration. Many have decided to implement citizen-centric, data-driven, and performance-focused governance and prepare to transform the existing e-government system into a smart government. Along the way, they have encountered problems such as flaws in existing legislation and in the integration of heterogeneous infrastructure from technical, financial, and privacy perspectives. We propose a new approach to information system modeling that introduces an integration layer for existing databases and services and suggests the application of several innovative technologies to achieve better problem-solving, optimal utilization of resources, and policy innovation. To test the effectiveness of the proposed solution, we have used corresponding weighted digraph models to confirm that the proposed solution achieves the desired effects. We have used the time required to collect documents to measure similarity. The obtained results prove the efficiency of the proposed model and indicate that the same model could be used elsewhere in public administration