Abstract

We revisit the problem of anonymous communication where nodes communicate without revealing their identity. We propose its use in the choosing of a node as an anonymous leader and subsequent communication to and from this leader such that its identity is not revealed. We give indistinguishability definitions for anonymous leader and prove it to be secure in an arbitrary reliable network.

Abstract

Let S be a set of n points in the plane. We present a method where, using O(n log2 n) time and space, S can be pre-processed into a data structure such that given an axis-parallel query rectangle q, we can report the radius of the smallest enclosing disk of the points lying in S ∩ q in O(log6 n) time per query

Abstract

The shared whiteboard model for distributed computing is one of the recent interesting models to be proposed (See Becker et al. (SPAA 2012)). In its basic form, this model allows all nodes to write a message of no more than O(log n) bits on a whiteboard that every node can read. However, each node can write at most once. In this model, a variety of problems from graphs are shown to be either possible or impossible. In this paper we extend the work of Becker et al. to allow for nodes to write on the shared whiteboard more than once. However, each node can write at most O(log n) bits at any one instant. Interestingly, in this model, we show that allowing just two rounds of writing on the whiteboard, one can color the vertices of a d-degenerate graph using d+1 colors. Similarly, we show that two rounds suffice to find maximal independent set (MIS), whereas 2-ruling sets can be computed in one round in simultaneous synchronous models. Finally, we show that for finding connected components in a graph, even O(1) rounds is not enough in general. We show that any deterministic algorithm that follows certain rules requires at least Omega(log nlog log n) rounds to find the connected components of an n-vertex graph. At the same time, we show the existence of a O(log n) round algorithm for the same. Thus, our results indicate that the multi-round shared whiteboard model has interesting consequences.

Abstract

We consider the problem of reporting convex hull points in an orthogonal range query in two dimensions. Formally, let $ P $ be a set of $ n $ points in $\mathbb {R}^{2} $. A point lies on the convex hull of a point set $ S $ if it lies on the boundary of the minimum convex polygon formed by $ S $. In this paper, we are interested in finding the points that lie on the boundary of the convex hull of the points in $ P $ that also fall with in an orthogonal range $[x_ {lt}, x_ {rt}]\times {}[y_b, y_t] $. We propose a $ O (n\log^{2} n) $ space data structure that can support reporting points on a convex hull inside an orthogonal range query, in time $ O (\log^{3} n+ h) $. Here $ h $ is the size of the output. This work improves the result of (Brass et al. 2013)\cite {brass} that builds a data structure that uses $ O (n\log^{2} n) $ space and has a $ O (\log^{5} n+ h) $ query time. Additionally, we show that our data structure can be modified slightly to solve other related problems. For instance, for counting the number of points on the convex hull in an orthogonal query rectangle, we propose an $ O (n\log^{2} n) $ space data structure that can be queried upon in $ O (\log^{3} n) $ time. We also propose a $ O (n\log^{2} n) $ space data structure that can compute the $ area $ and $ perimeter $ of the convex hull inside an orthogonal range query in $ O (\log^{3} n $) time.

Abstract

In this work, we propose a solution with sub-logarithmic query time for counting the number of maximal points in an axis parallel query rectangle. The problem has been previously studied in [3]and [5]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first sub-logarithmic query time solution for the problem. Our model of computation is the word RAM with word size of Θ(logn) bits.

Abstract

Summarization mainly provides the major topics or theme of document in limited number of words. However, in extract summary we depend upon extracted sentences, while in abstract summary, each summary sentence may contain concise information from multiple sentences. The major facts which affect the quality of summary are: (1) the way of handling noisy or less important terms in document, (2) utilizing information content of terms in document (as, each term may have different levels of importance in document) and (3) finally, the way to identify the appropriate thematic facts in the form of summary. To reduce the effect of noisy terms and to utilize the information content of terms in the document, we introduce the graph theoretical model populated with semantic and statistical importance of terms. Next, we introduce the concept of weighted minimum vertex cover which helps us in identifying the most representative and thematic facts in the document. Additionally, to generate abstract summary, we introduce the use of vertex constrained shortest path based technique, which uses minimum vertex cover related information as valuable resource. Our experimental results on DUC-2001 and DUC-2002 dataset show that our devised system performs better than baseline systems.

Abstract

In this paper, we show that certain phrases although not present in a given question/query, play a very important role in answering the question. Exploring the role of such phrases in answering questions not only reduces the dependency on matching question phrases for extracting answers, but also improves the quality of the extracted answers. Here matching question phrases means phrases which co-occur in given question and candidate answers. To achieve the above discussed goal, we introduce a bigram-based word graph model populated with semantic and topical relatedness of terms in the given document. Next, we apply an improved version of ranking with a prior-based approach, which ranks all words in the candidate document with respect to a set of root words (ie non-stopwords present in the question and in the candidate document). As a result, terms logically related to the root words are scored higher than terms that are not related to the root words. Experimental results show that our devised system performs better than state-of-the-art for the task of answering Why-questions.

Abstract

Reliable message transmission is a fundamental problem in distributed communication networks. Of late, several interesting results have been obtained by modelling the network as a directed graph. An important result among them was due to Bhavani et al. [Unconditionally reliable message transmission in directed networks, 18 in: SODA’08: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SIAM, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2008, pp. 1048–1055], where it was shown that if a negligible probability of error is allowed, the connectivity required in a synchronous network for unconditionally reliable message transmission (URMT) is significantly reduced. We refer to the variant of URMT studied by them as Monte Carlo URMT; here the receiver is allowed to output an incorrect message with small probability. Another interesting variant which has received little attention so far in the literature is the Las Vegas variant, where the receiver is allowed to abort with a small probability, but never to output an incorrect message. We show that the minimum connectivity requirements for the existence of Las Vegas URMT protocols over synchronous networks are the same as that of Monte Carlo URMT protocols over asynchronous networks—a surprising equivalence between two very different models. Furthermore, we show that the higher connectivity requirements of Las Vegas URMT over asynchronous networks match exactly with that of zero-error (perfect) variant over (a)synchronous networks. We also show that there exists a family of graphs where in the number of critical edges for the ‘easier’ randomized variants are asymptotically higher than that for the perfect variants. Hence, our results demonstrate an interesting interplay between (im)perfectness, synchrony and connectivity for the case of reliable message transmission.

Abstract

In this work, we study the problem of reporting and counting maximal points in a query rectangle for a set of n integer points that lie on an n×n grid. A point is said to be maximal inside a query rectangle if it is not dominated by any other point inside the query rectangle. Our model of computation is unit-cost RAM model with word size of O(logn) bits. For the reporting version of the problem, we present a data structure of size words and support querying in time where k is the size of the output. For the counting version, we present a data structure of size words which supports querying in . Both the data structures are static in nature. The reporting version of the problem has been studied in [1] and [5]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first sub-logarithmic result for the reporting version and the first work for the counting version of the problem.

Abstract

Perfectly reliable message transmission (PRMT) is one of the fundamental problems in distributed computing. It allows a sender to reliably transmit a message to a receiver in an unreliable network, even in the presence of a computationally unbounded adversary. In this article, we study the inherent trade-off between the three important parameters of the PRMT protocols, namely, the network connectivity (n), the round complexity (r), and the communication complexity by considering the following generic question (which can be considered as the holy grail problem) in the context of the PRMT protocols. Given an n-connected network, a message of size ℓ (to be reliably communicated) and a limit c for the total communication allowed between the sender and the receiver, what is the minimum number of communication rounds required by a PRMT protocol to send the message, such that the communication complexity of the protocol is O(c)? We answer this interesting question by deriving a nontrivial lower bound on the round complexity. Moreover, we show that the lower bound is tight in the amortized sense, by designing a PRMT protocol whose round complexity matches the lower bound. The lower bound is the first of its kind, that simultaneously captures the inherent tradeoff between the three important parameters of a PRMT protocol.