arXiv subjects

Chao Tian

Publications and source records attributed to Chao Tian.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

New Results on the Storage-Retrieval Tradeoff in Private Information Retrieval Systems

In a private information retrieval (PIR) system, the user needs to retrieve one of the possible messages from a set of storage servers, but wishes to keep the identity of requested message private from any given server. Existing efforts in this area have made it clear that the efficiency of the retrieval will be impacted significantly by the amount of the storage space allowed at the servers. In this work, we consider the tradeoff between the storage cost and the retrieval cost. We first present three fundamental results: 1) a regime-wise 2-approximate characterization of the optimal tradeoff, 2) a cyclic permutation lemma that can produce more sophisticated codes from simpler ones, and 3) a relaxed entropic linear program (LP) lower bound that has a polynomial complexity. Equipped with the cyclic permutation lemma, we then propose two novel code constructions, and by applying the lemma, obtain new storage-retrieval points. Furthermore, we derive more explicit lower bounds by utilizing only a subset of the constraints in the relaxed entropic LP in a systematic manner. Though the new upper bound and lower bound do not lead to a more precise approximate characterization in general, they are significantly tighter than the existing art.

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arXiv2020

Weakly Secure Symmetric Multilevel Diversity Coding

Multilevel diversity coding is a classical coding model where multiple mutually independent information messages are encoded, such that different reliability requirements can be afforded to different messages. It is well known that {\em superposition coding}, namely separately encoding the independent messages, is optimal for symmetric multilevel diversity coding (SMDC) (Yeung-Zhang 1999). In the current paper, we consider weakly secure SMDC where security constraints are injected on each individual message, and provide a complete characterization of the conditions under which superposition coding is sum-rate optimal. Two joint coding strategies, which lead to rate savings compared to superposition coding, are proposed, where some coding components for one message can be used as the encryption key for another. By applying different variants of Han's inequality, we show that the lack of opportunity to apply these two coding strategies directly implies the optimality of superposition coding. It is further shown that under a set of particular security constraints, one of the proposed joint coding strategies can be used to construct a code that achieves the optimal rate region.

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arXiv2020

On the Information Leakage in Private Information Retrieval Systems

We consider information leakage to the user in private information retrieval (PIR) systems. Information leakage can be measured in terms of individual message leakage or total leakage. Individual message leakage, or simply individual leakage, is defined as the amount of information that the user can obtain on any individual message that is not being requested, and the total leakage is defined as the amount of information that the user can obtain about all the other messages except the one being requested. In this work, we characterize the tradeoff between the minimum download cost and the individual leakage, and that for the total leakage, respectively. New codes are proposed to achieve these optimal tradeoffs, which are also shown to be optimal in terms of the message size. We further characterize the optimal tradeoff between the minimum amount of common randomness and the total leakage. Moreover, we show that under individual leakage, common randomness is in fact unnecessary when there are more than two messages.

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arXiv2020

Capacity-Achieving Private Information Retrieval Codes from MDS-Coded Databases with Minimum Message Size

We consider constructing capacity-achieving linear codes with minimum message size for private information retrieval (PIR) from $N$ non-colluding databases, where each message is coded using maximum distance separable (MDS) codes, such that it can be recovered from accessing the contents of any $T$ databases. It is shown that the minimum message size (sometimes also referred to as the sub-packetization factor) is significantly, in fact exponentially, lower than previously believed. More precisely, when $K>T/\textbf{gcd}(N,T)$ where $K$ is the total number of messages in the system and $\textbf{gcd}(\cdot,\cdot)$ means the greatest common divisor, we establish, by providing both novel code constructions and a matching converse, the minimum message size as $\textbf{lcm}(N-T,T)$, where $\textbf{lcm}(\cdot,\cdot)$ means the least common multiple. On the other hand, when $K$ is small, we show that it is in fact possible to design codes with a message size even smaller than $\textbf{lcm}(N-T,T)$.

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arXiv2019

Dense Fusion Classmate Network for Land Cover Classification

Recently, FCNs based methods have made great progress in semantic segmentation. Different with ordinary scenes, satellite image owns specific characteristics, which elements always extend to large scope and no regular or clear boundaries. Therefore, effective mid-level structure information extremely missing, precise pixel-level classification becomes tough issues. In this paper, a Dense Fusion Classmate Network (DFCNet) is proposed to adopt in land cover classification.

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arXiv2019

On the Storage Cost of Private Information Retrieval

We consider the fundamental tradeoff between the storage cost and the download cost in private information retrieval systems, without any explicit structural restrictions on the storage codes, such as maximum distance separable codes or uncoded storage. Two novel outer bounds are provided, which have the following implications. When the messages are stored without any redundancy across the databases, the optimal PIR strategy is to download all the messages; on the other hand, for PIR capacity-achieving codes, each database can reduce the storage cost, from storing all the messages, by no more than one message on average. We then focus on the two-message two-database case, and show that a stronger outer bound can be derived through a novel pseudo-message technique. This stronger outer bound suggests that a precise characterization of the storage-download tradeoff may require non-Shannon type inequalities, or at least more sophisticated bounding techniques.

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arXiv2019

Breaking the MDS-PIR Capacity Barrier via Joint Storage Coding

The capacity of private information retrieval (PIR) from databases coded using maximum distance separable (MDS) codes has been previously characterized by Banawan and Ulukus, where it was assumed that the messages are encoded and stored separably into the databases. This assumption was also usually taken in other related works in the literature, and this capacity is usually referred to as the MDS-PIR capacity colloquially. In this work, we considered the question if and when this capacity barrier can be broken through joint encoding and storing of the messages. Our main results are two classes of novel code constructions which allow joint encoding as well as the corresponding PIR protocols, which indeed outperform the separate MDS-coded systems. Moreover, we show that a simple but novel expansion technique allows us to generalize these two classes of codes, resulting in a wider range of the cases where this capacity barrier can be broken.

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arXiv2019

Capacity-Achieving Private Information Retrieval Codes with Optimal Message Size and Upload Cost

We propose a new capacity-achieving code for the private information retrieval (PIR) problem, and show that it has the minimum message size (being one less than the number of servers) and the minimum upload cost (being roughly linear in the number of messages) among a general class of capacity-achieving codes, and in particular, among all capacity-achieving linear codes. Different from existing code constructions, the proposed code is asymmetric, and this asymmetry appears to be the key factor leading to the optimal message size and the optimal upload cost. The converse results on the message size and the upload cost are obtained by a strategic analysis of the information theoretic proof of the PIR capacity, from which a set of critical properties of any capacity-achieving code in the code class of interest is extracted. The symmetry structure of the PIR problem is then analyzed, which allows us to construct symmetric codes from asymmetric ones, yielding a meaningful bridge between the proposed code and existing ones in the literature.

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arXiv2018

Symmetry, Outer Bounds, and Code Constructions: A Computer-Aided Investigation on the Fundamental Limits of Caching

We illustrate how computer-aided methods can be used to investigate the fundamental limits of the caching systems, which are significantly different from the conventional analytical approach usually seen in the information theory literature. The linear programming (LP) outer bound of the entropy space serves as the starting point of this approach; however, our effort goes significantly beyond using it to prove information inequalities. We first identify and formalize the symmetry structure in the problem, which enables us to show the existence of optimal symmetric solutions. A symmetry-reduced linear program is then used to identify the boundary of the memory-transmission-rate tradeoff for several small cases, for which we obtain a set of tight outer bounds. General hypotheses on the optimal tradeoff region are formed from these computed data, which are then analytically proven. This leads to a complete characterization of the optimal tradeoff for systems with only two users, and certain partial characterization for systems with only two files. Next, we show that by carefully analyzing the joint entropy structure of the outer bounds for certain cases, a novel code construction can be reverse-engineered, which eventually leads to a general class of codes. Finally, we show that outer bounds can be computed through strategically relaxing the LP in different ways, which can be used to explore the problem computationally. This allows us firstly to deduce generic characteristic of the converse proof, and secondly to compute outer bounds for larger problem cases, despite the seemingly impossible computation scale.

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arXiv2018

A Generic Transformation to Enable Optimal Repair in MDS Codes for Distributed Storage Systems

We propose a generic transformation that can convert any nonbinary $(n=k+r,k)$ maximum distance separable (MDS) code into another $(n,k)$ MDS code over the same field such that 1) some arbitrarily chosen $r$ nodes have the optimal repair bandwidth and the optimal rebuilding access, 2) for the remaining $k$ nodes, the normalized repair bandwidth and the normalized rebuilding access (over the file size) are preserved, 3) the sub-packetization level is increased only by a factor of $r$. Two immediate applications of this generic transformation are then presented. The first application is that we can transform any nonbinary MDS code with the optimal repair bandwidth or the optimal rebuilding access for the systematic nodes only, into a new MDS code which possesses the corresponding repair optimality for all nodes. The second application is that by applying the transformation multiple times, any nonbinary $(n,k)$ scalar MDS code can be converted into an $(n,k)$ MDS code with the optimal repair bandwidth and the optimal rebuilding access for all nodes, or only a subset of nodes, whose sub-packetization level is also optimal.

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arXiv2018

New Results on Multilevel Diversity Coding with Secure Regeneration

The problem of multilevel diversity coding with secure regeneration is revisited. Under the assumption that the eavesdropper can access the repair data for all compromised storage nodes, Shao el al. provided a precise characterization of the minimum-bandwidth-regeneration (MBR) point of the achievable normalized storage-capacity repair-bandwidth tradeoff region. In this paper, it is shown that the MBR point of the achievable normalized storage-capacity repair-bandwidth tradeoff region remains the same even if we assume that the eavesdropper can access the repair data for some compromised storage nodes (type 2 compromised nodes) but only the data contents of the remaining compromised nodes (type 1 compromised nodes), as long as the number of type 1 compromised nodes is no greater than that of type 2 compromised nodes.

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arXiv2017

Fundamental Limits of Coded Caching: From Uncoded Prefetching to Coded Prefetching

In order to characterize the fundamental limit of the tradeoff between the amount of cache memory and the delivery transmission rate of multiuser caching systems, various coding schemes have been proposed in the literature. These schemes can largely be categorized into two classes, namely uncoded prefetching schemes and coded prefetching schemes. While uncoded prefetching schemes in general offer order-wise optimal performance, coded prefetching schemes often have better performance at the low cache memory regime. The significant differences in the coding components between the two classes may leave the impression that they are largely unrelated. In this work, we provide a connection between the uncoded prefetching scheme proposed by Maddah Ali and Niesen (and its improved version by Yu et al) and the coded prefetching scheme proposed by Tian and Chen. A critical observation is first given where a coding component in the Tian-Chen scheme can be replaced by a binary .code, which enables us to view the two schemes as the extremes of a more general scheme. An explicit example is given to show that the intermediate operating points of this general scheme can in fact provide new memory-rate tradeoff points previously not known to be achievable in the literature. This new general coding scheme is then presented and analyzed rigorously, which yields a new inner bound to the memory-rate tradeoff for the caching problem.

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arXiv2017

Multilevel Diversity Coding with Secure Regeneration: Separate Coding Achieves the MBR Point

The problem of multilevel diversity coding with secure regeneration (MDC-SR) is considered, which includes the problems of multilevel diversity coding with regeneration (MDC-R) and secure regenerating code (SRC) as special cases. Two outer bounds are established, showing that separate coding of different messages using the respective SRCs can achieve the minimum-bandwidth-regeneration (MBR) point of the achievable normalized storage-capacity repair-bandwidth tradeoff regions for the general MDC-SR problem. The core of the new converse results is an exchange lemma, which can be established using Han's subset inequality.

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arXiv2017

Matched Multiuser Gaussian Source-Channel Communications via Uncoded Schemes

We investigate whether uncoded schemes are optimal for Gaussian sources on multiuser Gaussian channels. Particularly, we consider two problems: the first is to send correlated Gaussian sources on a Gaussian broadcast channel where each receiver is interested in reconstructing only one source component (or one specific linear function of the sources) under the mean squared error distortion measure; the second is to send correlated Gaussian sources on a Gaussian multiple-access channel, where each transmitter observes a noisy combination of the source, and the receiver wishes to reconstruct the individual source components (or individual linear functions) under the mean squared error distortion measure. It is shown that when the channel parameters match certain general conditions, the induced distortion tuples are on the boundary of the achievable distortion region, and thus optimal. Instead of following the conventional approach of attempting to characterize the achievable distortion region, we ask the question whether and how a match can be effectively determined. This decision problem formulation helps to circumvent the difficult optimization problem often embedded in region characterization problems, and it also leads us to focus on the critical conditions in the outer bounds that make the inequalities become equalities, which effectively decouple the overall problem into several simpler sub-problems. Optimality results previously unknown in the literature are obtained using this novel approach. As a byproduct of the investigation, novel outer bounds are derived for these two problems.

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arXiv2017

On the Tradeoff Region of Secure Exact-Repair Regenerating Codes

We consider the $(n,k,d,\ell)$ secure exact-repair regenerating code problem, which generalizes the $(n,k,d)$ exact-repair regenerating code problem with the additional constraint that the stored file needs to be kept information-theoretically secure against an eavesdropper, who can access the data transmitted to regenerate a total of $\ell$ different failed nodes. For all known results on this problem, the achievable tradeoff regions between the normalized storage capacity and repair bandwidth have a single corner point, achieved by a scheme proposed by Shah, Rashmi and Kumar (the SRK point). Since the achievable tradeoff regions of the exact-repair regenerating code problem without any secrecy constraints are known to have multiple corner points in general, these existing results suggest a phase-change-like behavior, i.e., enforcing a secrecy constraint ($\ell\geq 1$) immediately reduces the tradeoff region to one with a single corner point. In this work, we first show that when the secrecy parameter $\ell$ is sufficiently large, the SRK point is indeed the only corner point of the tradeoff region. However, when $\ell$ is small, we show that the tradeoff region can in fact have multiple corner points. In particular, we establish a precise characterization of the tradeoff region for the $(7,6,6,1)$ problem, which has exactly two corner points. Thus, a smooth transition, instead of a phase-change-type of transition, should be expected as the secrecy constraint is gradually strengthened.

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arXiv2016

Multilevel Diversity Coding with Regeneration

Digital contents in large scale distributed storage systems may have different reliability and access delay requirements, and for this reason, erasure codes with different strengths need to be utilized to achieve the best storage efficiency. At the same time, in such large scale distributed storage systems, nodes fail on a regular basis, and the contents stored on them need to be regenerated and stored on other healthy nodes, the efficiency of which is an important factor affecting the overall quality of service. In this work, we formulate the problem of multilevel diversity coding with regeneration to address these considerations, for which the storage vs. repair-bandwidth tradeoff is investigated. We show that the extreme point on this tradeoff corresponding to the minimum possible storage can be achieved by a simple coding scheme, where contents with different reliability requirements are encoded separately with individual regenerating codes without any mixing. On the other hand, we establish the complete storage-repair-bandwidth tradeoff for the case of four storage nodes, which reveals that codes mixing different contents can strictly improve this tradeoff over the separate coding solution.

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arXiv2016

Caching and Delivery via Interference Elimination

We propose a new caching scheme where linear combinations of the file segments are cached at the users, for the cases where the number of files is no greater than the number of users. When a user requests a certain file in the delivery phase, the other file segments in the cached linear combinations can be viewed as interferences. The proposed scheme combines rank metric codes and maximum distance separable codes to facilitate the decoding and elimination of these interferences, and also to simultaneously deliver useful contents to the intended users. The performance of the proposed scheme can be explicitly evaluated, and we show that the tradeoff points achieved by this scheme can strictly improve known tradeoff inner bounds in the literature; for certain special cases, the new tradeoff points can be shown to be optimal.

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arXiv2015

Multilevel Diversity Coding with Regeneration: Separate Coding Achieves the MBR Point

The problem of multilevel diversity coding with regeneration is considered in this work. Two new outer bounds on the optimal tradeoffs between the normalized storage capacity and repair bandwidth are established, by which the optimality of separate coding at the minimum-bandwidth-regeneration (MBR) point follows immediately. This resolves a question left open in a previous work by Tian and Liu.

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