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Fighting against the pandemic diseases with unique characters requires new sophisticated approaches like the artificial intelligence. This paper develops an artificial intelligence algorithm to produce multi-dimensional policies for controlling and minimizing the pandemic casualties under the limited pharmacological resources. In this respect, a comprehensive parametric model with a priority and age-specific vaccination policy and a variety of non-pharmacological policies are introduced. This parametric model is utilized for constructing an artificial intelligence algorithm by following the exact analogy of the model-based solution. Also, this parametric model is manipulated by the artificial intelligence algorithm to seek for the best multi-dimensional non-pharmacological policies that minimize the future pandemic casualties as desired. The role of the pharmacological and non-pharmacological policies on the uncertain future casualties are extensively addressed on the real data. It is shown that the developed artificial intelligence algorithm is able to produce efficient policies which satisfy the particular optimization targets such as focusing on minimization of the death casualties more than the infected casualties or considering the curfews on the people age over 65 rather than the other non-pharmacological policies. The paper finally analyses a variety of the mutant virus cases and the corresponding non-pharmacological policies aiming to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fighting against the pandemic diseases with unique characters requires new sophisticated approaches like the artificial intelligence. This paper develops an artificial intelligence algorithm to produce multi-dimensional policies for controlling and minimizing the pandemic casualties under the limited pharmacological resources. In this respect, a comprehensive parametric model with a priority and age-specific vaccination policy and a variety of non-pharmacological policies are introduced. This parametric model is utilized for constructing an artificial intelligence algorithm by following the exact analogy of the model-based solution. Also, this parametric model is manipulated by the artificial intelligence algorithm to seek for the best multi-dimensional non-pharmacological policies that minimize the future pandemic casualties as desired. The role of the pharmacological and non-pharmacological policies on the uncertain future casualties are extensively addressed on the real data. It is shown that the developed artificial intelligence algorithm is able to produce efficient policies which satisfy the particular optimization targets such as focusing on minimization of the death casualties more than the infected casualties or considering the curfews on the people age over 65 rather than the other non-pharmacological policies. The paper finally analyses a variety of the mutant virus cases and the corresponding non-pharmacological policies aiming to reduce the morbidity and mortality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy management strategy (EMS) is the key to the performance of fuel cell / battery hybrid system. At present, reinforcement learning (RL) has been introduced into this field and has gradually become the focus of research. However, traditional EMSs only take the energy consumption into consideration when optimizing the operation economy, and ignore the cost caused by power source degradations. It would cause the problem of poor operation economy regarding Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). On the other hand, most studied RL algorithms have the disadvantages of overestimation and improper way of restricting battery SOC, which would lead to relatively poor control performance as well. To solve these problems, this paper establishes a TCO model including energy consumption, equivalent energy consumption and degradation of power sources at first, then adopt the Double Q-learning RL algorithm with state constraint and variable action space to determine the optimal EMS. Finally, using hardware-in-the-loop platform, the feasibility, superiority and generalization of proposed EMS is proved by comparing with the optimal dynamic programming and traditional RL EMS and equivalent consumption minimum strategy (ECMS) under both training and unknown operating conditions. Results prove that the proposed strategy has high global optimality and excellent SOC control ability regardless of training or unknown conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an algorithmic framework, message passing is extremely powerful and has wide applications in the context of different disciplines including communications, coding theory, statistics, signal processing, artificial intelligence and combinatorial optimization. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a message-passing algorithm called min-sum belief propagation (BP) for the vertex-disjoint shortest $k$ -path problem ($k$ -VDSP) on weighted directed graphs, and derive the iterative message-passing update rules. As the main result of this paper, we prove that for a weighted directed graph $G$ of order $n$ , BP algorithm converges to the unique optimal solution of $k$ -VDSP on $G$ within $O(n^{2}w_{max})$ iterations, provided that the weight $w_{e}$ is nonnegative integral for each arc $e\in E(G)$ , where $w_{max}=\max \{w_{e}: e\in E(G)\}$. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first instance where BP algorithm is proved correct for NP-hard problems. Additionally, we establish the extensions of $k$ -VDSP to the case of multiple sources or sinks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the stochastic optimization problem focusing on developing scalable parallel algorithms for deep learning tasks. Our solution involves a reformation of the objective function for stochastic optimization in neural network models, along with a novel parallel computing strategy, coined the weighted aggregating stochastic gradient descent (WASGD). Following a theoretical analysis on the characteristics of the new objective function, WASGD introduces a decentralized weighted aggregating scheme based on the performance of local workers. Without any center variable, the new method automatically gauges the importance of local workers and accepts them by their contributions. Furthermore, we have developed an enhanced version of the method, WASGD+, by (1) implementing a designed sample order and (2) upgrading the weight evaluation function. To validate the new method, we benchmark our pipeline against several popular algorithms including the state-of-the-art deep neural network classifier training techniques (e.g., elastic averaging SGD). Comprehensive validation studies have been conducted on four classic datasets: CIFAR-100, CIFAR-10, Fashion-MNIST, and MNIST. Subsequent results have firmly validated the superiority of the WASGD scheme in accelerating the training of deep architecture. Better still, the enhanced version, WASGD+, is shown to be a significant improvement over its prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible block partition and newly adopted intra coding tools bring significant performance improvement for next generation video coding, and meanwhile introduce non-negligible encoding complexity increment. This paper presents a scalable intra coding optimization (SICO) scheme for the third generation of audio video coding standard (AVS3). The complexity distribution and inheriting relationship among different partitioning, as well as intra prediction modes, are systematically analyzed. Subsequently, low-complexity algorithms are proposed, which could early exclude unlikely coding modes safely. In particular, a data-driven binary classifier is elegantly trained for the determination of coding unit partitioning. Moreover, the preliminary coding information can be exhaustively utilized for the mode decision in a low-cost manner. The proposed method provides scalable intra coding optimizing solutions, which is eligible to cater to various application scenarios. Experimental results show that the proposed method could achieve a wide range of encoding complexity reduction from 18% to 76% with moderate compression performance loss. One implementation of the proposed method has been adopted to the AVS3 reference software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adversarial attacks have been extensively studied in recent years since they can identify the vulnerability of deep learning models before deployed. In this paper, we consider the black-box adversarial setting, where the adversary needs to craft adversarial examples without access to the gradients of a target model. Previous methods attempted to approximate the true gradient either by using the transfer gradient of a surrogate white-box model or based on the feedback of model queries. However, the existing methods inevitably suffer from low attack success rates or poor query efficiency since it is difficult to estimate the gradient in a high-dimensional input space with limited information. To address these problems and improve black-box attacks, we propose two prior-guided random gradient-free (PRGF) algorithms based on biased sampling and gradient averaging, respectively. Our methods can take the advantage of a transfer-based prior given by the gradient of a surrogate model and the query information simultaneously. Through theoretical analyses, the transfer-based prior is appropriately integrated with model queries by an optimal coefficient in each method. Extensive experiments demonstrate that, in comparison with the alternative state-of-the-arts, both of our methods require much fewer queries to attack black-box models with higher success rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adversarial attacks have been extensively studied in recent years since they can identify the vulnerability of deep learning models before deployed. In this paper, we consider the black-box adversarial setting, where the adversary needs to craft adversarial examples without access to the gradients of a target model. Previous methods attempted to approximate the true gradient either by using the transfer gradient of a surrogate white-box model or based on the feedback of model queries. However, the existing methods inevitably suffer from low attack success rates or poor query efficiency since it is difficult to estimate the gradient in a high-dimensional input space with limited information. To address these problems and improve black-box attacks, we propose two prior-guided random gradient-free (PRGF) algorithms based on biased sampling and gradient averaging, respectively. Our methods can take the advantage of a transfer-based prior given by the gradient of a surrogate model and the query information simultaneously. Through theoretical analyses, the transfer-based prior is appropriately integrated with model queries by an optimal coefficient in each method. Extensive experiments demonstrate that, in comparison with the alternative state-of-the-arts, both of our methods require much fewer queries to attack black-box models with higher success rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing number of controllable devices in the grid, devices owned by different entities are supposed to cooperatively support the grid operation. To balance the various interests of the customers and the utility, this paper proposes a two-level scheduling algorithm to address voltage regulation by coordinating the customer-owned battery energy storage system (BESS) and utility-owned load tap changers (LTCs) in power distribution systems. The objective is to find the optimal operation scheduling for both BESSs and LTCs that simultaneously maximize the economic payback and satisfy system operation rules. For BESSs, a local optimization problem is formulated in a chance-constrained manner in major consideration of the economic performance. For the utility interest, a Markov decision process (MDP) and a computationally efficient reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm are utilized to solve the optimal tap setting problem. To coordinate BESSs and LTCs, a global voltage adjustment is applied. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated via simulations on the IEEE 13-node and 34-node distribution test feeders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes on-driving experience sharing algorithms at junctions in infrastructure-assisted vehicles-to-everything networks. For the purpose, a millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology is used because it provides multi-Gbps data rates which is helpful for handling users’ short stay times at junctions and spatial reuse due to high beam directionality which is helpful for interference-avoidance among densely deployed vehicles at junctions. To realize on-driving experience sharing, the proposed algorithms focus on joint resource allocation and scheduling for 3GPP-compliant multiple unicast vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications where the vehicles are group leaders (GLs) in 3GPP Mode 4(d). The resource allocation stands for the roadside unit (RSU) allocation to scheduled V2V GL links where RSU is essentially required for overcoming blockage by establishing two-hop relaying. Because vehicles stay for short times at junctions, this paper designs two algorithms without or with delay considerations. Without delay considerations, the joint optimization of RSU allocation and scheduling was originally formulated as mixed 0-1 non-convex optimization. However our proposed algorithm reformulates the problem into mixed 0-1 convex optimization, which is computationally easier to solve. With delay considerations, our proposed algorithm dynamically controls video contents frame rates for time-average on-driving video sharing quality maximization subject to delay constraints, inspired by Lyapunov optimization. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that our algorithms can significantly outperform in a variety of scenarios. Furthermore, we conduct the cost analysis for the proposed algorithms in terms of capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies distributed algorithms for (strongly convex) composite optimization problems over mesh networks, subject to quantized communications. Instead of focusing on a specific algorithmic design, a black-box model is proposed, casting linearly convergent distributed algorithms in the form of fixed-point iterates. The algorithmic model is equipped with a novel random or deterministic Biased Compression (BC) rule on the quantizer design, and a new Adaptive encoding Non-uniform Quantizer (ANQ) coupled with a communication-efficient encoding scheme, which implements the BC-rule using a finite number of bits (below machine precision). This fills a gap existing in most state-of-the-art quantization schemes, such as those based on the popular compression rule, which rely on communication of some scalar signals with negligible quantization error (in practice quantized at the machine precision). A unified communication complexity analysis is developed for the black-box model, determining the average number of bits required to reach a solution of the optimization problem within a target accuracy. It is shown that the proposed BC-rule preserves linear convergence of the unquantized algorithms, and a trade-off between convergence rate and communication cost under ANQ-based quantization is characterized. Numerical results validate our theoretical findings and show that distributed algorithms equipped with the proposed ANQ have more favorable communication cost than algorithms using state-of-the-art quantization rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel Federated Edge Network Utility Maximization (FEdg-NUM) architecture for solving a large-scale distributed network utility maximization (NUM) problem. In FEdg-NUM, clients with private utilities communicate to a peer-to-peer network of edge servers. This represents a departure from the classical distributed NUM master-slave configuration and enables distributed computing harnessing local communications. Compared to a solution using cloud synchronization via Ring AllReduce, we prove that our federated edge computing model has shorter run-time in the presence of network congestion, thanks to its configuration and its ability to make progress in the presence of intermittent links. The paper studies its convergence and run-time performance both analytically and numerically, and illustrates several possible networking applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As pairwise ranking becomes broadly employed for elections, sports competitions, recommendation, information retrieval and so on, attackers have strong motivation and incentives to manipulate or disrupt the ranking list. They could inject malicious comparisons into the training data to fool the target ranking algorithm. Such a technique is called “poisoning attack” in regression and classification tasks. In this paper, to the best of our knowledge, we initiate the first systematic investigation of data poisoning attack on the pairwise ranking algorithms, which can be generally formalized as the dynamic and static games between the ranker and the attacker, and can be modeled as certain kinds of integer programming problems mathematically. To break the computational hurdle of the underlying integer programming problems, we reformulate them into the distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems, which are computational tractable. Based on such DRO formulations, we propose two efficient poisoning attack algorithms and establish the associated theoretical guarantees including the existence of Nash equilibrium and the generalization ability bounds. The effectiveness of the suggested poisoning attack strategies is demonstrated by a series of toy simulations and several real data experiments. These experimental results show that the proposed methods can significantly reduce the performance of the ranker in the sense that the correlation between the true ranking list and the aggregated results with toxic data can be decreased dramatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In real-world applications, it is important for machine learning algorithms to be robust against data outliers or corruptions. In this paper, we focus on improving the robustness of a large class of learning algorithms that are formulated as low-rank semi-definite programming (SDP) problems. Traditional formulations use the square loss, which is notorious for being sensitive to outliers. We propose to replace this with more robust noise models, including the $\ell _1$ ℓ 1 -loss and other nonconvex losses. However, the resultant optimization problem becomes difficult as the objective is no longer convex or smooth. To alleviate this problem, we design an efficient algorithm based on majorization-minimization. The crux is on constructing a good optimization surrogate, and we show that this surrogate can be efficiently obtained by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). By properly monitoring ADMM's convergence, the proposed algorithm is empirically efficient and also theoretically guaranteed to converge to a critical point. Extensive experiments are performed on four machine learning applications using both synthetic and real-world data sets. Results show that the proposed algorithm is not only fast but also has better performance than the state-of-the-arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding top- $k$ k frequent items has been a hot issue in databases. Finding top- $k$ k persistent items is a new issue, and has attracted increasing attention in recent years. In practice, users often want to know which items are significant, i.e., not only frequent but also persistent. No prior art can address both of the above two issues at the same time. Also, for high-speed data streams, prior art cannot achieve high accuracy when the memory is tight. In this paper, we define a new issue, named finding significant items, and propose a novel algorithm namely LTC to address this issue. It includes two key techniques, Long-tail Restoring and CLOCK, as well as three optimizations. In addition, LTC is extended to support finding significant items with thresholds. We theoretically derive the correct rate and error bound, and conduct extensive experiments on three real datasets to test the performance of LTC. Our experimental results show that LTC can achieve $10^5$ 10 5 times higher accuracy in terms of average relative error than other related algorithms. Lastly, LTC is applied to a DDoS detection task and it shows that finding significant items is more powerful than finding frequent items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a class of nonconvex regularized optimization problems, which appear frequently in machine learning and data processing. Due to the structure of the problems, the iteratively reweighted algorithm was developed and applied to the consensus optimization. In this paper, we propose the acceleration of this scheme by adding an inertial term in each iteration. The proposed algorithms inherit the advantages of classical decentralized algorithms: they can be implemented over a connected network, in which the agents communicate with their neighbors and perform local computations. We also employ the diminishing stepsizes technique for the iteratively reweighted algorithm and consider its acceleration. In specific cases, our algorithms reduce to existing decentralized schemes and also indicate novel ones. Mathematically, we prove the convergence for both algorithms with several assumptions on the objective functions. With Kurdyka-Łojasiewicz property, convergence rates can be derived for constant stepsize case. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing non-convexity plays a fundamental role in solving the optimal electricity-gas flow models. In this paper, an improved spatial branch-and-bound algorithm is proposed to solve the non-convex problem, which is formulated as a mixed-integer bilinear programming, for its exact solution. The core of the algorithm is to divide the non-convex model into convex and small sub-models by branching on specific continuous variables, so that the non-convex problem can be equivalent to a rooted tree for exploration. The exactness of the algorithm is guaranteed by the same criterion as the classical branch-and-bound algorithm. To alleviate the computational burden, a novel two-stage spatial branching strategy is developed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the branching operations. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified on two integrated electricity-gas systems with different sizes. Numerical results demonstrate that our method achieves a balance among feasibility, optimality, and efficiency. The comparison with another 6 convexification-based methods, 3 state-of-the-art non-convex optimization solvers, and 2 spatial branch-and-bound algorithms with classical branching rules further shows the superiority of our algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on minimum-time path tracking, a subproblem in motion planning of robotic systems. We generate a time-optimal velocity profile for robotic manipulators taking into account kinematic and dynamic constraints. Based on the special structure of the constraints (called peaked constraints), profile generation is formulated as a linear programming (LP) problem. The LP-based control problem is solved by a sequential optimization method. The presented algorithm has reduced computational time compared to a general LP solver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In task offloading systems, it is imperative to guarantee that an offloaded task is completed within a pre-specified deadline. In this paper, we propose a distributed device-to-device (D2D) offloading system (DDOS) in which a task owner opportunistically broadcasts an offloading request that includes its mobility level and task completion deadline. After receiving the request, mobile devices in the vicinity of the task owner employ a constraint stochastic game to decide, in a distributed manner, whether to accept the request or not. We devise a best response dynamics-based algorithm (BRDA) to obtain a multi-policy constrained Nash equilibrium. Evaluation results demonstrate that DDOS can guarantee a high on-time task completion probability, as well as a low energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted wireless powered IoT network, where a rotary-wing UAV adopts fly-hover-communicate protocol to successively visit IoT devices in demand. During the hovering periods, the UAV works on full-duplex mode to simultaneously collect data from the target device and charge other devices within its coverage. Practical propulsion power consumption model and non-linear energy harvesting model are taken into account. We formulate a multi-objective optimization problem to jointly optimize three objectives: maximization of sum data rate, maximization of total harvested energy and minimization of UAV’s energy consumption over a particular mission period. These three objectives are in conflict with each other partly and weight parameters are given to describe associated importance. Since IoT devices keep gathering information from the physical surrounding environment and their requirements to upload data change dynamically, online path planning of the UAV is required. In this paper, we apply deep reinforcement learning algorithm to achieve online decision. An extended deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm is proposed to learn control policies of UAV over multiple objectives. While training, the agent learns to produce optimal policies under given weights conditions on the basis of achieving timely data collection according to the requirement priority and avoiding devices’ data overflow. The verification results show that the proposed MODDPG (multi-objective DDPG) algorithm achieves joint optimization of three objectives and optimal policies can be adjusted according to weight parameters among optimization objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the performance potential of a novel dual-mode power-split hybrid powertrain. First, the steady-state power split characteristics for the proposed hybrid powertrain in different modes are analyzed. The mode switching strategy is developed to maximize powertrain efficiency, which is verified by using dynamic programming based on direct transmit points (DTPs). Moreover, a novel multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on the decomposition (MOEA/D) method used in a nested way with dynamic programming is proposed to solve the multi-objective optimization of the PS-HEVs for the first time, and the computational efficiency and superiority of the proposed algorithm is compared with the commonly used NSGA-II algorithm. The results show that the MOEA/D based multi-objective optimization framework has similar performance in the search for the Pareto frontier but significantly higher computational efficiency than that of the NSGA-II algorithm. The obtained Pareto frontier provides optimal design candidates for hybrid powertrain systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed optimization algorithms for security-constrained economic dispatch (SCED) problems have been the subject of significant research interest in recent years. However, existing distributed SCED algorithms can be ineffective in the presence of malicious participants and inefficient in the absence of a coordinator. On the other hand, blockchain, an emerging technique known as the trust machine, has not shown its potential to address the above challenges in state-of-the-art literature. This paper proposes a blockchain-based distributed SCED algorithm. Using blockchain to form a coordination committee and enable balance among committee members, the proposed method allows the use of hierarchical SCED algorithms in the absence of a coordinator and can disable malicious participants. Numerical results show the robustness and necessity of the proposed blockchain-based SCED algorithm, by comparing the SCED results with and without blockchain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of vehicles (IoV) is a large information interaction network that collects information on vehicles, roads and pedestrians. One of the important uses of vehicle networks is to meet the entertainment needs of driving users through communication between vehicles and roadside units (RSUs). Due to the limited storage space of RSUs, determining the content cached in each RSU is a key challenge. With the development of 5G and video editing technology, short video systems have become increasingly popular. Current widely used cache update methods, such as partial file precaching and content popularity- and user interest-based determination, are inefficient for such systems. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a QoE-driven edge caching method for the IoV based on deep reinforcement learning. First, a class-based user interest model is established. Compared with the traditional file popularity- and user interest distribution-based cache update methods, the proposed method is more suitable for systems with a large number of small files. Second, a quality of experience (QoE)-driven RSU cache model is established based on the proposed class-based user interest model. Third, a deep reinforcement learning method is designed to address the QoE-driven RSU cache update issue effectively. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we leverage reinforcement learning (RL) and cross-layer network coding (CLNC) for efficiently pre-fetching requested contents to the local caches and delivering these contents to requesting users in a downlink fog-radio access network (F-RAN) with device-to-device (D2D) communications. In the considered system, fog access points (F-APs) and cache-enabled D2D (CE-D2D) users are equipped with local caches that alleviate traffic burden at the fronthaul and facilitate rapid delivery of the users’ contents. To this end, the CLNC scheme optimizes the coding decisions, transmission rates, and power levels of both F-APs and CE-D2D users, and RL scheme optimizes caching strategy. A joint content placement and delivery problem is formulated as an optimization problem with a goal to maximize system sum-rate. The problem is an NP-hard problem. To efficiently solve it, we first develop an innovative decentralized CLNC coalition formation (CLNC-CF) switch algorithm to obtain a stable solution for the content delivery problem, where F-APs and CE-D2D users utilize CLNC resource allocation. By considering statistics of channel and users’ content request into account, we then develop a multi-agent RL algorithm for optimizing the content placement at both F-APs and CE-D2D users. Simulation results show that the proposed joint CLNC-CF-RL framework can effectively improve the sum-rate by up to 30%, 60%, and 150%, respectively, compared to: 1) an optimal uncoded algorithm, 2) a standard rate-aware-NC algorithm, and 3) a benchmark classical NC with network-layer optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For vehicle-to-network communications, handover (HO) management enables vehicles to maintain the connection with the network while transiting through coverage areas of different base stations (BSs). However, the high mobility of vehicles means shorter connection periods with each BS that leads to frequent HOs, hence raises the necessity for optimal HO decision making for high quality infotainment services. Machine learning is capable of capturing underlying pattern via data driven methods to find optimal solutions to complex problems, and much learning-based HO optimization research has been conducted focusing on specific network setups. However, attention still needs to be paid to the actual deployment aspect and standardized datasets or simulation environments for evaluation. This paper proposes a deep reinforcement learning-based HO algorithm using the input parameters that are configurable in the existing measurement report of cellular networks. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using the well-known network simulator ns-3 with its official LTE module. A realistic network setup in the city center of Glasgow (U.K.) is configured with vehicle trajectories generated by the routes mobility model using Google Maps Directions API. Evaluation results reveal that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the A3 RSRP baseline with an average of 25.72% packet loss reduction per HO, suggesting significant improvement in quality of service of phone call and video streaming, etc. The proposed algorithm also has a small implementation cost compared to some state-of-the-art and should be deployed by a software update to a local BS controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers stochastic convex optimization problems with two sets of constraints: (a) deterministic constraints on the domain of the optimization variable, which are difficult to project onto; and (b) deterministic or stochastic constraints that admit efficient projection. Problems of this form arise frequently in the context of semidefinite programming as well as when various NP-hard problems are solved approximately via semidefinite relaxation. Since projection onto the first set of constraints is difficult, it becomes necessary to explore projection-free algorithms, such as the stochastic Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm. On the other hand, the second set of constraints cannot be handled in the same way, and must be incorporated as an indicator function within the objective function, thereby complicating the application of FW methods. Similar problems have been studied before; however, they suffer from slow convergence rates. This work, equipped with momentum based gradient tracking technique, guarantees fast convergence rates on par with the best-known rates for problems without the second set of constraints. Zeroth-order variants of the proposed algorithms are also developed and again improve upon the state-of-the-art rate results. We further propose the novel trimmed FW variants that enjoy the same convergence rates as their classical counterparts, but are empirically shown to require significantly fewer calls to the linear minimization oracle speeding up the overall algorithm. The efficacy of the proposed algorithms is tested on relevant applications of sparse matrix estimation, clustering via semidefinite relaxation, and uniform sparsest cut problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide a theoretical and numerical comparison of convergence rates of forward-backward, Douglas-Rachford, and Peaceman-Rachford algorithms for minimizing the sum of a convex proper lower semicontinuous function and a strongly convex differentiable function with Lipschitz continuous gradient. Our results extend the comparison made in [1], when both functions are smooth, to the context where only one is assumed differentiable. Optimal step-sizes and rates of the three algorithms are compared theoretically and numerically in the context of texture segmentation problem, obtaining very sharp estimations and illustrating the high efficiency of Peaceman-Rachford splitting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In context to high-dimensional clustering, the concept of feature weighting has gained considerable importance over the years to capture the relative degrees of importance of different features in revealing the cluster structure of the dataset. However, the popular techniques in this area either fail to perform feature selection or do not preserve the simplicity of Lloyd’s heuristic to solve the $k$ k -means problem and the like. In this paper, we propose a Lasso Weighted $k$ k -means ($LW$ L W - $k$ k -means) algorithm, as a simple yet efficient sparse clustering procedure for high-dimensional data where the number of features ($p$ p ) can be much higher than the number of observations ($n$ n ). The $LW$ L W - $k$ k -means method imposes an $\ell _1$ ℓ 1 regularization term involving the feature weights directly to induce feature selection in a sparse clustering framework. We develop a simple block-coordinate descent type algorithm with time-complexity resembling that of Lloyd’s method, to optimize the proposed objective. In addition, we establish the strong consistency of the $LW$ L W - $k$ k -means procedure. Such an analysis of the large sample properties is not available for the conventional sparse $k$ k -means algorithms, in general. $LW$ L W - $k$ k -means is tested on a number of synthetic and real-life datasets and through a detailed experimental analysis, we find that the performance of the method is highly competitive against the baselines as well as the state-of-the-art procedures for center-based high-dimensional clustering, not only in terms of clustering accuracy but also with respect to computational time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benchmarking various metaheuristics and their new enhancements, strategies, and adaptation mechanisms has become standard in computational intelligence research. Recently, many challenges and issues regarding fair comparisons and recommendations toward good practices for benchmarking of metaheuristic algorithms, have been identified. This article is aimed at an important issues in metaheuristics design and benchmarking, which are boundary strategies or boundary control methods (BCMs). This work aims to investigate whether the choice of a BCM could significantly influence the performance of competitive algorithms. The experiments encompass the top three performing algorithms from IEEE CEC competitions 2017 and 2020 with six different BCMs. We provide extensive statistical analysis and rankings resulting in conclusions and recommendations for metaheuristics researchers and possibly also for the future direction of benchmark definitions. We conclude that the BCM should be considered another vital metaheuristics input variable for unambiguous reproducibility of results in benchmarking and for a better understanding of population dynamics, since the BCM setting could impact the optimization method performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the convergence properties of the well-known message-passing algorithm for convex optimisation. Under the assumption of pairwise separability and scaled diagonal dominance, asymptotic convergence is established and a simple bound for the convergence rate is provided for message-passing. In comparison with previous results, our results do not require the given convex program to have known convex pairwise components and that our bound for the convergence rate is tighter and simpler. When specialised to quadratic optimisation, we generalise known results by providing a very simple bound for the convergence rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the problem of minimizing the $\ell _1$ norm of a linear map over the sphere, which arises in various machine learning applications such as orthogonal dictionary learning (ODL) and robust subspace recovery (RSR). The problem is numerically challenging due to its nonsmooth objective and nonconvex constraint, and its algorithmic aspects have not been well explored. In this paper, we show how the manifold structure of the sphere can be exploited to design fast algorithms with provable guarantees for tackling this problem. Specifically, our contribution is fourfold. First, we present a manifold proximal point algorithm (ManPPA) for the problem and show that it converges at a global sublinear rate. Furthermore, we show that ManPPA can achieve a local quadratic convergence rate when applied to sharp instances of the problem. Second, we develop a semismooth Newton-based inexact augmented Lagrangian method for computing the search direction in each iteration of ManPPA and show that it has an asymptotic superlinear convergence rate. Third, we propose a stochastic variant of ManPPA called StManPPA, which is well suited for large-scale computation, and establish its sublinear convergence rate. Both ManPPA and StManPPA have provably faster convergence rates than existing subgradient-type methods. Fourth, using ManPPA as a building block, we propose a new heuristic method for solving a matrix analog of the problem, in which the sphere is replaced by the Stiefel manifold. The results from our extensive numerical experiments on the ODL and RSR problems demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of our proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of the variable renewable energies makes the operation conditions of the power system ever-changeable. Consequently, the power system operational reliability evaluation is increasingly important. This paper introduces the concept of decision-dependent uncertainty (DDU) in the operational reliability evaluation. Unlike the exogenous uncertainties, DDU reveals that the decisions of the system operation could significantly affect the resolution of the uncertainties which influence the reliability metrics. In this paper, the proposed DDU modeling method links the device reliability indices, i.e., the forced outage rate, and the operational-decision variables. The impacts of DDU on operational reliability are analyzed based on a reliability-constrained stochastic unit commitment (UC) model. An adaptive reliability improvement UC (ARIUC) algorithm is proposed to efficiently solve the problem. Case studies underline the necessity of considering DDU in power system operational reliability evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the problem of partitioning a spectrum band into $M$ channels of equal bandwidth, and then further assigning these $M$ channels into $P$ licensed channels and $M-P$ unlicensed channels. Licensed channels can be accessed both for licensed and opportunistic use following a tiered structure that has a higher priority for licensed use. Unlicensed channels can be accessed only for opportunistic use. We address the following question in this paper. Given a market setup, what values of $M$ and $P$ maximize the net spectrum utilization of the spectrum band? While this problem is fundamental, it is highly relevant practically, e.g., in the context of partitioning the recently proposed Citizens Broadband Radio Service band. If $M$ is too high or too low, it may decrease spectrum utilization due to limited channel capacity or due to wastage of channel capacity, respectively. If $P$ is too high (low), it will not incentivize the wireless operators who are primarily interested in unlicensed channels (licensed channels) to join the market. These tradeoffs are captured in our optimization problem which manifests itself as a two-stage Stackelberg game. We design an algorithm to solve the Stackelberg game and hence find the optimal $M$ and $P$. The algorithm design also involves an efficient Monte Carlo integrator to evaluate the expected value of the involved random variables like spectrum utilization and operators’ revenue. We also benchmark our algorithms using numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate resource allocation for IRS-assisted green multiuser multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems. To minimize the total transmit power, both the beamforming vectors at the access point (AP) and the phase shifts at multiple IRSs are jointly optimized, while taking into account the minimum required quality-of-service (QoS) of multiple users. First, two novel algorithms, namely a penalty-based alternating minimization (AltMin) algorithm and an inner approximation (IA) algorithm, are developed to tackle the non-convexity of the formulated optimization problem when perfect channel state information (CSI) is available. Existing designs employ semidefinite relaxation in AltMin-based algorithms, which, however, cannot ensure convergence. In contrast, the proposed penalty-based AltMin and IA algorithms are guaranteed to converge to a stationary point and a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) solution of the design problem, respectively. Second, the impact of imperfect knowledge of the CSI of the channels between the AP and the users is investigated. To this end, a non-convex robust optimization problem is formulated and the penalty-based AltMin algorithm is extended to obtain a stationary solution. Simulation results reveal a key trade-off between the speed of convergence and the achievable total transmit power for the two proposed algorithms. In addition, we show that the proposed algorithms can significantly reduce the total transmit power at the AP compared to various baseline schemes and that the optimal numbers of transmit antennas and IRS reflecting elements, which maximize the system energy efficiency of the considered system, are finite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coupled Matrix Tensor Factorization (CMTF) facilitates the integration and analysis of multiple data sources and helps discover meaningful information. Nonnegative CMTF (N-CMTF) has been employed in many applications for identifying latent patterns, prediction, and recommendation. However, due to the added complexity with coupling between tensor and matrix data, existing N-CMTF algorithms exhibit poor computation efficiency. In this paper, a computationally efficient N-CMTF factorization algorithm is presented based on the column-wise element selection, preventing frequent gradient updates. Theoretical and empirical analyses show that the proposed N-CMTF factorization algorithm is not only more accurate but also more computationally efficient than existing algorithms in approximating the tensor as well as in identifying the underlying nature of factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the proliferation of distributed generators and energy storage systems, traditional passive consumers in power systems have been gradually evolving into the so-called “prosumers,” i.e., proactive consumers, which can both produce and consume power. To encourage energy exchange among prosumers, energy sharing is increasingly adopted, which is usually formulated as a generalized Nash game (GNG). In this paper, a distributed approach is proposed to seek the Generalized Nash equilibrium (GNE) of the energy sharing game. To this end, we first prove the strong monotonicity of the game. Then, the GNG is converted into an equivalent optimization problem. An algorithm based on Nesterov's methods is thereby devised to solve the equivalent problem and consequently find the GNE in a distributed manner. The convergence of the proposed algorithm is proved rigorously based on the nonexpansive operator theory. The performance of the algorithm is validated by experiments with three prosumers, and the scalability is tested by simulations using 1888 prosumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new decentralized data-driven load restoration (DDLR) scheme for transmission and distribution (TD) systems with high penetration of wind power. Robust DDLR models are constructed in order to handle uncertainties and ensure the feasibility of decentralized schemes. The Wasserstein metric is used to describe the ambiguity sets of probability distributions in order to build the complete DDLR model and realize computationally tractable formulation. A data-driven model-nested analytical target cascading (DATC) algorithm is developed to obtain the final load restoration result by iteratively solving small-scale mathematical models. The proposed DDLR scheme provides load restoration results with adjustable robustness, and performance efficiency is independent from the amount of data. The DDLR scheme makes full use of the available data while respecting information privacy requirements of independent operated systems, and ensures the feasibility of a decentralized load restoration strategy even in the worst-case condition. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated using a small-scale TD system and a large-scale system with the IEEE 118-bus TS and thirty IEEE-33 DSs, showing high computational efficiency and superior restoration performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper integrates an estimation of distribution (EoD)-based update operator into decomposition-based multiobjective evolutionary algorithms for binary optimization. The probabilistic model in the update operator is a probability vector, which is adaptively learned from historical information of each subproblem. We show that this update operator can significantly enhance decomposition-based algorithms on a number of benchmark problems. Moreover, we apply the enhanced algorithms to the constrained optimal software product selection (OSPS) problem in the field of search-based software engineering. For this real-world problem, we give its formal definition and then develop a new repair operator based on satisfiability solvers. It is demonstrated by the experimental results that the algorithms equipped with the EoD operator are effective in dealing with this practical problem, particularly for large-scale instances. The interdisciplinary studies in this paper provide a new real-world application scenario for constrained multiobjective binary optimizers and also offer valuable techniques for software engineers in handling the OSPS problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the problem of predictive gear scheduling for fuel consumption minimization in connected/automated heavy trucks. The literature highlights the fuel economy benefits of such predictive scheduling, but there is a need to optimize such scheduling online, in real time. To address this need, we begin by using dynamic programming (DP) to schedule gear shifting offline, in a manner that achieves a globally optimal Pareto tradeoff between the conflicting objectives of minimizing fuel consumption and shift frequency. The computational cost of DP is unfavorable for online implementation, but we present two algorithms addressing this challenge. Both algorithms rely on the fact that in the Pareto limit where fuel consumption minimization is the sole objective, DP furnishes a simple static shift map. Our first algorithm trains a recurrent neural network to prune the shift schedule generated by this map. The second algorithm performs this pruning in a direct manner tailored to reduce the schedule's rain flow count. We simulate these algorithms for different drive cycles. Both algorithms achieve a reasonable tradeoff between fuel consumption and gear shift frequency. However, the rain flow count algorithm is both more effective in approaching the DP-based Pareto front and more computationally efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure System (CVIS) can provide innovative services for traffic management and enable trips to be safer, more coordinated, and smarter. In the CVIS, the vehicles upload crowd sensing data to the Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) server for quick data fusion and informed decision-making. However, with the ever-increasing number of vehicles, the VEC server cannot undertake massive computation-intensive tasks due to the limited edge computing capabilities. In this paper, we propose a reverse offloading framework that can fully utilize the vehicular computation resource to relieve the burden of the VEC server and further reduce the system latency. Under the proposed offloading framework, the binary reverse offloading (BRO) and partial reverse offloading (PRO) strategies are designed for two types of tasks, i.e., non-partitioned tasks and partitioned tasks. We formulate the system latency minimization problem by optimizing reverse offloading decisions, and the communication and computation resources allocation. Due to the non-convex and existing variables coupling, the original problem is transformed into the equivalent weighted-sum optimization problem. Based on the alternative optimization, we decouple the weighted-sum optimization problems into the two subproblems, and the closed-form expressions of transmission power and computation frequency of vehicles and RSU are derived. Low complexity greedy based efficient searching (GES) algorithm and joint alternative optimization based bi-section searching (JAOBSS) algorithm are proposed for BRO and PRO strategies, respectively. The algorithm complexity and performance bounds are analyzed. Simulation results show that the proposed GES algorithm can achieve optimal performance with low complexity. Besides, the proposed GES and JAOBSS algorithms can significantly improve the performance compared with other baseline schemes by 6.14% and 13.46% at least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we propose globally optimal power allocation strategies to maximize the users sum-rate (SR), and system energy efficiency (EE) in the downlink of single-cell multicarrier non-orthogonal multiple access (MC-NOMA) systems. Each NOMA cluster includes a set of users in which the well-known superposition coding (SC) combined with successive interference cancellation (SIC) technique is applied among them. By obtaining the closed-form expression of intra-cluster power allocation, we show that MC-NOMA can be equivalently transformed to a virtual orthogonal multiple access (OMA) system, where the effective channel gain of these virtual OMA users is obtained in closed-form. Then, the SR and EE maximization problems are solved by using very fast water-filling and Dinkelbach algorithms, respectively. The equivalent transformation of MC-NOMA to the virtual OMA system brings new theoretical insights, which are discussed throughout the paper. The extensions of our analyses to other scenarios, such as considering users rate fairness, admission control, long-term performance, and a number of future next-generation multiple access (NGMA) schemes enabling recent advanced technologies, e.g., reconfigurable intelligent surfaces are discussed. Extensive numerical results are provided to demonstrate the performance gaps among single-carrier NOMA (SC-NOMA), OMA-NOMA, and OMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual Coordinate Descent (DCD) is one of the most popular optimization methods. The parallelization of DCD is difficult, as DCD is sequential in nature. As such, simultaneously running multiple DCD threads on batches of data elements causes result inaccuracy and slow convergence, due to the concurrent updates of multiple coordinates. Some parallelization methods adopt separable approximate functions that depend on the degree of parallelism. Such dependencies result in both poor scalability and slow-convergence. To address these challenges, in this paper we present a new parallel primal-dual algorithm for DCD, called PPD. In PPD, the block data distribution is utilized to obtain a new approximate function that is independent from the parallelism. Moreover, PPD is designed with a novel primal-dual acceleration scheme to approach the optimal solution closely and quickly. We demonstrate the advantages of PPD in terms of scalability and efficiency through experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrared and visible image fusion (IVIF) expects to obtain images that retain thermal radiation information from infrared images and texture details from visible images. In this paper, a model-based convolutional neural network (CNN) model, referred to as Algorithm Unrolling Image Fusion (AUIF), is proposed to overcome the shortcomings of traditional CNN-based IVIF models. The proposed AUIF model starts with the iterative formulas of two traditional optimization models, which are established to accomplish two-scale decomposition, i.e., separating low-frequency base information and high-frequency detail information from source images. Then the algorithm unrolling is implemented where each iteration is mapped to a CNN layer and each optimization model is transformed into a trainable neural network. Compared with the general network architectures, the proposed framework combines the model-based prior information and is designed more reasonably. After the unrolling operation, our model contains two decomposers (encoders) and an additional reconstructor (decoder). In the training phase, this network is trained to reconstruct the input image. While in the test phase, the base (or detail) decomposed feature maps of infrared/visible images are merged respectively by an extra fusion layer, and then the decoder outputs the fusion image. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons demonstrate the superiority of our model, which can robustly generate fusion images containing highlight targets and legible details, exceeding the state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, our network has fewer weights and faster speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper firstly proposes a greedy online packet scheduling algorithm for the problem raised by Mao, Koksal and Shroff that allows arbitrary hard deadlines in multi-hop networks aiming at maximizing the total revenue. With the same assumption of ρM/ρm = O(1) where ρM and ρm are the maximum and minimum revenue a packet may carry, our algorithm is O (PM)-competitive improving on MKS algorithm by a factor of O (log PM), where PM is the length of the longest path a packet may travel in the network. We prove that it is asymptotically optimal by presenting a lower bound of PM on the competitiveness for this problem. Secondly, this paper studies the extension of this problem that includes routing as a part of the solution. We prove that using the fastest path algorithm for the routing part, the greedy online algorithm also achieves asymptotically optimal competitiveness for the extended problem. Furthermore, we present a non-greedy online algorithm that not only is asymptotically optimal, but also can adaptively achieve a better competitiveness when the network has a larger Cmin, where Cmin is the minimum link capacity in the network. Finally, simulation results are reported, showing that not only do the greedy online algorithms achieve asymptotically optimal bounds, but also practically achieve better performance than the previously proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers optimal joint time, frequency, and power allocation for energy-efficient device-to-device (D2D) communications in an overlay cellular network, where multiple D2D transmitters communicate with their corresponding D2D receivers while utilizing the energy harvested from a cellular base station (BS). Due to channel estimation error and feedback delays, the channel state information (CSI) available at the transmitters is usually imperfect, which can significantly deteriorate the energy efficiency (EE) of the considered system. To mitigate the impact of imperfect CSI, we formulate a non-convex robust optimization problem for the maximization of the EE (in bits/Joule) of the system while ensuring quality of service (QoS) requirements on the minimum data rata and the minimum amount of harvested energy for cellular and D2D users, respectively. We reveal that the optimal energy-efficient D2D transmission should exhaust all the harvested energy of each D2D transmitter. Exploiting this fact, we propose an efficient iterative algorithm for obtaining the optimal solution. To strike a balance between performance and computational complexity, we further propose a low-complexity suboptimal algorithm. Simulation results show that compared with several baseline schemes, both the proposed optimal and suboptimal algorithms can significantly improve the EE of wireless-powered D2D communications under imperfect CSI. Moreover, the proposed suboptimal algorithm is close-to-optimal when the number of cellular users are small or the channel estimation error is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is an efficient solution to significantly enhance the energy efficiency of the wireless communication system. In this paper, a downlink multi-cluster NOMA network is considered, where each cluster is supported by one IRS. This paper aims to minimize the transmit power by jointly optimizing the beamforming, the power allocation and the phase shift of each IRS. The formulated problem is non-convex and challenging to be solved due to the coupled variables, i.e., the beamforming vector, the power allocation coefficient and the phase shift matrix. To address this non-convex problem, an alternating optimization based algorithm is proposed. Specifically, the primal problem is divided into two subproblems for beamforming optimization and phase shifting feasiblity, where the two subproblems are solved iteratively. Moreover, to guarantee the feasibility of the beamforming optimization problem, an iterative algorithm is proposed to search the feasible initial points. To reduce the complexity, a simplified algorithm based on partial exhaustive search for this system model is also proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed alternating algorithm can yield a better performance gain than the partial exhaustive search algorithm, NOMA with random IRS phase shift scheme and OMA-IRS scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a novel design of user pairing and resource allocation in a simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT)-enabled cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system with coexisting power-splitting (PS) and time-switching (TS) users. In this system, near NOMA users (NUs) that are close to a source can assist the communications between the source and far NOMA users (FUs) using the energy harvested by either PS or TS strategy. The design aims to maximize the sum-rate of the system by optimizing user pairing and power allocation between NUs and FUs as well as performing PS and TS control at NUs, while guaranteeing the target data rates and the minimum harvested energy requirements of users. Since the joint design is formulated as a non-convex mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem that is challenging to tackle, we propose a two-step user pairing and resource allocation algorithm. Specifically, we decouple the original problem into an inner resource allocation problem and an outer user pairing problem. For the inner problem, we propose successive convex approximation (SCA) and block coordinate descent (BCD)-based algorithms to perform power allocation as well as PS and TS control iteratively, with the algorithms’ convergence being theoretically proved. By exploiting the characteristics of the outer problem of user pairing, this problem is well tackled by the Hungarian algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the proposed joint design yields better performance gains than the existing schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) is a promising new paradigm to achieve high spectral and energy efficiency for future wireless networks by reconfiguring the wireless signal propagation via passive reflection. To reap the promising gains of IRS, channel state information (CSI) is essential, whereas channel estimation errors are inevitable in practice due to limited channel training resources. In this paper, in order to optimize the performance of IRS-aided multiuser communications with imperfect CSI, we propose to jointly design the active transmit precoding at the access point (AP) and passive reflection coefficients of the IRS, each consisting of not only the conventional phase shift and also the newly exploited amplitude variation. First, the achievable rate of each user is derived assuming a practical IRS channel estimation method, which shows that the interference due to CSI errors is intricately related to the AP transmit precoders, the channel training power and the IRS reflection coefficients during both channel training and data transmission. Next, for the single-user case, by combining the benefits of the penalty method, Dinkelbach method and block successive upper-bound minimization (BSUM) method, a new penalized Dinkelbach-BSUM algorithm is proposed to optimize the IRS reflection coefficients for maximizing the achievable data transmission rate subjected to CSI errors; while for the multiuser case, a new penalty dual decomposition (PDD)-based algorithm is proposed to maximize the users’ weighted sum-rate. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms as compared to benchmark schemes. In particular, useful insights are drawn to characterize the effect of IRS reflection amplitude control (with/without the conventional phase-shift control) on the system performance under imperfect CSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose Graph-Cut RANSAC, GC-RANSAC in short, a new robust geometric model estimation method where the local optimization step is formulated as energy minimization with binary labeling, applying the graph-cut algorithm to select inliers. The minimized energy reflects the assumption that geometric data often form spatially coherent structures – it includes both a unary component representing point-to-model residuals and a binary term promoting spatially coherent inlier-outlier labelling of neighboring points. The proposed local optimization step is conceptually simple, easy to implement, efficient with a globally optimal inlier selection given the model parameters. Graph-Cut RANSAC, equipped with “the bells and whistles” of USAC and MAGSAC++, was tested on a range of problems using a number of publicly available datasets for homography, 6D object pose, fundamental and essential matrix estimation. It is more geometrically accurate than state-of-the-art robust estimators, fails less often and runs faster or with speed similar to less accurate alternatives. The source code is available at https://github.com/danini/graph-cut-ransac. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]