Secret key generation based on channel characteristics is an effective physical-layer security method for 5G wireless networks. The issues of how to ensure the high key generation rate and correlation of the secret key under active attack are needed to be addressed. In this paper, a new practical secret key generation scheme with high rate and correlation is proposed. In our proposed scheme, Alice and Bob transmit independent random sequences instead of known training sequences or probing signals; neither Alice nor Bob can decode these random sequences or estimate the channel. User's random sequences together with the channel effects are used as common random source to generate the secret key. With this solution, legitimate users are able to share secret keys with sufficient length and high security under active attack. We evaluate the proposed scheme through both analytic and simulation studies. The results show that our proposed scheme achieves high key generation rate and key security, and is suitable for 5G wireless networks with resource-constrained devices.

In many real application scenarios of image segmentation problems involving limited and low-quality data, employing prior information can significantly improve the segmentation result. For example, the shape of the object is a kind of common prior information. In this paper, we introduced a new kind of prior information, which is named by prior distribution. On the basis of nonparametric statistical active contour model, we proposed a novel distribution prior model. Unlike traditional shape prior model, our model is not sensitive to the shapes of object boundary. Using the intensity distribution of objects and backgrounds as prior information can simplify the process of establishing and solving the model. The idea of constructing our energy function is as follows. During the contour curve convergence, while maximizing distribution difference between the inside and outside of the active contour, the distribution difference between the inside/outside of contour and the prior object/background is minimized. We present experimental results on a variety of synthetic and natural images. Experimental results demonstrate the potential of the proposed method that with the information of prior distribution, the segmentation effect and speed can be both improved efficaciously.

Threat object recognition in x-ray security images is one of the important practical applications of computer vision. However, research in this field has been limited by the lack of available dataset that would mirror the practical setting for such applications. In this paper, we present a novel GAN-based anomaly detection (GBAD) approach as a solution to the extreme class-imbalance problem in multi-label classification. This method helps in suppressing the surge in false positives induced by training a CNN on a non-practical dataset. We evaluate our method on a large-scale x-ray image database to closely emulate practical scenarios in port security inspection systems. Experiments demonstrate improvement against the existing algorithm.

Argumentation is a process of reaching a consensus through premises and rebuttals. If an artificial dialogue system can perform argumentation, it can improve users' decisions and ability to negotiate with the others. Previously, researchers have studied argumentative dialogue systems through a structured database regarding argumentation structure and evaluated the logical consistency of the dialogue. However, these systems could not change its response based on the user's agreement or disagreement to its last utterance. Furthermore, the persuasiveness of the generated dialogue has not been evaluated. In this study, a method is proposed to generate persuasive arguments through a hierarchical argumentation structure that considers human agreement and disagreement. Persuasiveness is evaluated through a crowd sourcing platform wherein participants' written impressions of shown dialogue texts are scored via a third person Likert scale evaluation. The proposed method was compared to the baseline method wherein argument response texts were generated without consideration of the user's agreement or disagreement. Experiment results suggest that the proposed method can generate a more persuasive dialogue than the baseline method. Further analysis implied that perceived persuasiveness was induced by evaluations of the behavior of the dialogue system, which was inherent in the hierarchical argumentation structure.

One goal in stack-queue mixed layouts of a graph subdivision is to obtain a layout with minimum number of subdivision vertices per edge when the number of stacks and queues are given. Dujmović and Wood showed that for every integer s, q>0, every graph G has an s-stack q-queue subdivision layout with 4⌈log(s+q)q sn(G)⌉ (resp. 2+4⌈log(s+q)q qn(G)⌉) division vertices per edge, where sn(G) (resp. qn(G)) is the stack number (resp. queue number) of G. This paper improves these results by showing that for every integer s, q>0, every graph G has an s-stack q-queue subdivision layout with at most 2⌈logs+q-1sn(G)⌉ (resp. at most 2⌈logs+q-1qn(G)⌉ +4) division vertices per edge. That is, this paper improves previous results more, for graphs with larger stack number sn(G) or queue number qn(G) than given integers s and q. Also, the larger the given integer s is, the more this paper improves previous results.

In the theory of orthogonal arrays, an orthogonal array (OA) is called schematic if its rows form an association scheme with respect to Hamming distances. In this paper, we study the Hamming distances of any two rows in an OA, construct some schematic OAs of strength two and give the positive solution to the open problem for classifying all schematic OAs. Some examples are given to illustrate our methods.

In this paper, we consider the design problem of an unknown-input observer for distributed network systems under the existence of communication delays. In the proposed method, each node estimates all states and calculates inputs from its own estimate. It is assumed that the controller of each node is given by an observer-based controller. When calculating each node, the input values of the other nodes cannot be utilized. Therefore, each node calculates alternative inputs instead of the unknown inputs of the other nodes. The alternative inputs are generated by own estimate based on the feedback controller of the other nodes given by the assumption. Each node utilizes these values instead of the unknown inputs when calculating the estimation and delay compensation. The stability of the estimation error of the proposed observer is proven by a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional. The stability condition is given by a linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, the result of a numerical simulation is shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In the context of compressed sensing (CS), simultaneous orthogonal matching pursuit (SOMP) algorithm is an important iterative greedy algorithm for multiple measurement matrix vectors sharing the same non-zero locations. Restricted isometry property (RIP) of measurement matrix is an effective tool for analyzing the convergence of CS algorithms. Based on the RIP of measurement matrix, this paper shows that for the K-row sparse recovery, the restricted isometry constant (RIC) is improved to $delta_{K+1}<rac{sqrt{4K+1}-1}{2K}$ for SOMP algorithm. In addition, based on this RIC, this paper obtains sufficient conditions that ensure the convergence of SOMP algorithm in noisy case.

Sorting is one of the most fundamental problems in mathematics and computer science. Because high-throughput and flexible sorting is a key requirement in modern databases, this paper presents efficient techniques for designing a high-throughput sorting matrix that supports continuous data sequences. There have been numerous studies on the optimization of sorting circuits on FPGA (field-programmable gate array) platforms. These studies focused on attaining high throughput for a single command with fixed data width. However, the architectures proposed do not meet the requirement of diversity for database data types. A sorting matrix architecture is thus proposed to overcome this problem. Our design consists of a matrix of identical basic sorting cells. The sorting cells work in a pipeline and in parallel, and the matrix can simultaneously process multiple data streams, which can be combined into a high-width single-channel data stream or low-width multiple-channel data streams. It can handle continuous sequences and allows for sorting variable-length data sequences. Its maximum throughput is approximately 1.4 GB/s for 32-bit sequences and approximately 2.5 GB/s for 64-bit sequences on our platform.

We have developed a digital watermarking method that use neural networks to learn embedding and extraction processes that are robust against rotation and JPEG compression. The proposed neural networks consist of a stego-image generator, a watermark extractor, a stego-image discriminator, and an attack simulator. The attack simulator consists of a rotation layer and an additive noise layer, which simulate the rotation attack and the JPEG compression attack, respectively. The stego-image generator can learn embedding that is robust against these attacks, and also, the watermark extractor can extract watermarks without rotation synchronization. The quality of the stego-images can be improved by using the stego-image discriminator, which is a type of adversarial network. We evaluated the robustness of the watermarks and image quality and found that, using the proposed method, high-quality stego-images could be generated and the neural networks could be trained to embed and extract watermarks that are robust against rotation and JPEG compression attacks. We also showed that the robustness and image quality can be adjusted by changing the noise strength in the noise layer.

In this paper, we propose secure dictionary learning based on a random unitary transform for sparse representation. Currently, edge cloud computing is spreading to many application fields including services that use sparse coding. This situation raises many new privacy concerns. Edge cloud computing poses several serious issues for end users, such as unauthorized use and leak of data, and privacy failures. The proposed scheme provides practical MOD and K-SVD dictionary learning algorithms that allow computation on encrypted signals. We prove, theoretically, that the proposal has exactly the same dictionary learning estimation performance as the non-encrypted variant of MOD and K-SVD algorithms. We apply it to secure image modeling based on an image patch model. Finally, we demonstrate its performance on synthetic data and a secure image modeling application for natural images.

Information and communication technologies have improved the quality of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). By estimating from cellular floating vehicle data (CFVD) is more cost-effective, and easier to acquire than traditional ways. This study proposes a cell probe (CP)-based method to analyse the cellular network signals (e.g., call arrival, handoff, and location update), and regression models are trained for vehicle speed estimation. In experiments, this study compares the practical traffic information of vehicle detector (VD) with the estimated traffic information by the proposed methods. The experiment results show that the accuracy of vehicle speed estimation by CP-based method is 97.63%. Therefore, the CP-based method can be used to estimate vehicle speed from CFVD for ITS.

As one of the most popular intelligent optimization algorithms, Simulated Annealing (SA) faces two key problems, the generation of perturbation solutions and the control strategy of the outer loop (cooling schedule). In this paper, we introduce the Gaussian Cloud model to solve both problems and propose a novel cloud annealing algorithm. Its basic idea is to use the Gaussian Cloud model with decreasing numerical character He (Hyper-entropy) to generate new solutions in the inner loop, while He essentially indicates a heuristic control strategy to combine global random search of the outer loop and local tuning search of the inner loop. Experimental results in function optimization problems (i.e. single-peak, multi-peak and high dimensional functions) show that, compared with the simple SA algorithm, the proposed cloud annealing algorithm will lead to significant improvement on convergence and the average value of obtained solutions is usually closer to the optimal solution.

The major weakness of global navigation satellite system receivers is their vulnerability to intentional and unintentional interference. Frequency domain interference suppression (FDIS) technology is one of the most useful countermeasures. The pseudo-range measurement is unbiased after FDIS filtering given an ideal analog channel. However, with the influence of the analog modules used in RF front-end, the amplitude response and phase response of the channel equivalent filter are non-ideal, which bias the pseudo-range measurement after FDIS filtering and the bias varies along with the frequency of the interference. This paper proposes an unbiased interference suppression method based on signal estimation and spectrum compensation. The core idea is to use the parameters calculated from the tracking loop to estimate and reconstruct the desired signal. The estimated signal is filtered by the equivalent filter of actual channel, then it is used for compensating the spectrum loss caused by the FDIS method in the frequency domain. Simulations show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the pseudo-range measurement bias significantly, even for channels with asymmetrical group delay and multiple interference sources at any location.

Multi-modal semantic trajectory prediction has become a new challenge due to the rapid growth of multi-modal semantic trajectories with text message. Traditional RNN trajectory prediction methods have the following problems to process multi-modal semantic trajectory. The distribution of multi-modal trajectory samples shifts gradually with training. It leads to difficult convergency and long training time. Moreover, each modal feature shifts in different directions, which produces multiple distributions of dataset. To solve the above problems, MNERM (Mode Normalization Enhanced Recurrent Model) for multi-modal semantic trajectory is proposed. MNERM embeds multiple modal features together and combines the LSTM network to capture long-term dependency of trajectory. In addition, it designs Mode Normalization mechanism to normalize samples with multiple means and variances, and each distribution normalized falls into the action area of the activation function, so as to improve the prediction efficiency while improving greatly the training speed. Experiments on real dataset show that, compared with SERM, MNERM reduces the sensitivity of learning rate, improves the training speed by 9.120 times, increases HR@1 by 0.03, and reduces the ADE by 120 meters.

For the frequency-division-duplex (FDD)-based massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, channel state information (CSI) feedback plays a critical role. Although deep learning has been used to compress the CSI feedback, some issues like truncation and noise still need further investigation. Facing these practical concerns, we propose an improved model (called CsiNet-Plus), which includes a truncation process and a channel noise process. Simulation results demonstrate that the CsiNet-Plus outperforms the existing CsiNet. The performance interchangeability between truncated decimal digits and the signal-to-noise-ratio helps support flexible configuration.

As Internet-connected service is emerged, there has been a need for use cases where a lightweight cryptographic primitive meets both of a constrained hardware implementation requirement and a constrained embedded software requirement. One of the examples of these use cases is the PKES (Passive Keyless Entry and Start) system in an automotive domain. From the perspective on these use cases, one interesting direction is to investigate how small the memory (RAM/ROM) requirement of ARM-implementations of hardware-oriented stream ciphers can be. In this paper, we propose implementation techniques for memory-optimized implementations of lightweight hardware-oriented stream ciphers including Grain-128a specified in ISO/IEC 29167-13 for RFID protocols. Our techniques include data-dependency analysis to take a close look at how and in which timing certain variables are updated and also the way taking into account the structure of registers on the target micro-controller. In order to minimize RAM size, we reduce the number of general purpose registers for computation of Grain-128a's update and pre-output values. We present results of our memory-optimized implementations of Grain-128a, one of which requires 84 RAM bytes on ARM Cortex-M3.

The success and scale of the Internet and its protocol IP has spurred emergent distributed technologies such as fog/edge computing and new application models based on distributed containerized microservices. The Internet of Things and Connected Communities are poised to build on these technologies and models and to benefit from the ability to communicate in a peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion. Ubiquitous sensing, actuating and computing implies a scale that breaks the centralized cloud computing model. Challenges stemming from limited IPv4 public addresses, the need for transport layer authentication, confidentiality and integrity become a burden on developing new middleware and applications designed for the network's edge. One approach - not reliant on the slow adoption of IPv6 - is the use of virtualized overlay networks, which abstract the complexities of the underlying heterogeneous networks that span the components of distributed fog applications and middleware. This paper describes the evolution of the design and implementation of IP-over-P2P (IPOP) - from its purist P2P inception, to a pragmatic hybrid model which is influenced by and incorporates standards. The hybrid client-server/P2P approach allows IPOP to leverage existing robust and mature cloud infrastructure, while still providing the characteristics needed at the edge. IPOP is networking cyber infrastructure that presents an overlay virtual private network which self-organizes with dynamic membership of peer nodes into a scalable structure. IPOP is resilient to partitioning, supports redundant paths within its fabric, and provides software defined programming of switching rules to utilize these properties of its topology.