arXiv subjects

Lalitha Sankar

Publications and source records attributed to Lalitha Sankar.

108 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Smart Meter Privacy: A Utility-Privacy Framework

End-user privacy in smart meter measurements is a well-known challenge in the smart grid. The solutions offered thus far have been tied to specific technologies such as batteries or assumptions on data usage. Existing solutions have also not quantified the loss of benefit (utility) that results from any such privacy-preserving approach. Using tools from information theory, a new framework is presented that abstracts both the privacy and the utility requirements of smart meter data. This leads to a novel privacy-utility tradeoff problem with minimal assumptions that is tractable. Specifically for a stationary Gaussian Markov model of the electricity load, it is shown that the optimal utility-and-privacy preserving solution requires filtering out frequency components that are low in power, and this approach appears to encompass most of the proposed privacy approaches.

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arXiv2011

Competitive Privacy in the Smart Grid: An Information-theoretic Approach

Advances in sensing and communication capabilities as well as power industry deregulation are driving the need for distributed state estimation in the smart grid at the level of the regional transmission organizations (RTOs). This leads to a new competitive privacy problem amongst the RTOs since there is a tension between sharing data to ensure network reliability (utility/benefit to all RTOs) and withholding data for profitability and privacy reasons. The resulting tradeoff between utility, quantified via fidelity of its state estimate at each RTO, and privacy, quantified via the leakage of the state of one RTO at other RTOs, is captured precisely using a lossy source coding problem formulation for a two RTO network. For a two-RTO model, it is shown that the set of all feasible utility-privacy pairs can be achieved via a single round of communication when each RTO communicates taking into account the correlation between the measured data at both RTOs. The lossy source coding problem and solution developed here is also of independent interest.

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arXiv2011

Multi-User Privacy: The Gray-Wyner System and Generalized Common Information

The problem of preserving privacy when a multivariate source is required to be revealed partially to multiple users is modeled as a Gray-Wyner source coding problem with K correlated sources at the encoder and K decoders in which the kth decoder, k = 1, 2, ...,K, losslessly reconstructs the kth source via a common link and a private link. The privacy requirement of keeping each decoder oblivious of all sources other than the one intended for it is introduced via an equivocation constraint at each decoder such that the total equivocation summed over all decoders is E. The set of achievable rates-equivocation tuples is completely characterized. Using this characterization, two different definitions of common information are presented and are shown to be equivalent.

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arXiv2011

Discriminatory Lossy Source Coding: Side Information Privacy

A lossy source coding problem is studied in which a source encoder communicates with two decoders, one with and one without correlated side information with an additional constraint on the privacy of the side information at the uninformed decoder. Two cases of this problem arise depending on the availability of the side information at the encoder. The set of all feasible rate-distortion-equivocation tuples are characterized for both cases. The difference between the informed and uninformed cases and the advantages of encoder side information for enhancing privacy are highlighted for a binary symmetric source with erasure side information and Hamming distortion.

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arXiv2011

Ergodic Fading Interference Channels: Sum-Capacity and Separability

The sum-capacity for specific sub-classes of ergodic fading Gaussian two-user interference channels (IFCs) is developed under the assumption of perfect channel state information at all transmitters and receivers. For the sub-classes of uniformly strong (every fading state is strong) and ergodic very strong two-sided IFCs (a mix of strong and weak fading states satisfying specific fading averaged conditions) the optimality of completely decoding the interference, i.e., converting the IFC to a compound multiple access channel (C-MAC), is proved. It is also shown that this capacity-achieving scheme requires encoding and decoding jointly across all fading states. As an achievable scheme and also as a topic of independent interest, the capacity region and the corresponding optimal power policies for an ergodic fading C-MAC are developed. For the sub-class of uniformly weak IFCs (every fading state is weak), genie-aided outer bounds are developed. The bounds are shown to be achieved by treating interference as noise and by separable coding for one-sided fading IFCs. Finally, for the sub-class of one-sided hybrid IFCs (a mix of weak and strong states that do not satisfy ergodic very strong conditions), an achievable scheme involving rate splitting and joint coding across all fading states is developed and is shown to perform at least as well as a separable coding scheme.

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arXiv2010

An Information-theoretic Approach to Privacy

Ensuring the usefulness of electronic data sources while providing necessary privacy guarantees is an important unsolved problem. This problem drives the need for an overarching analytical framework that can quantify the safety of personally identifiable information (privacy) while still providing a quantifable benefit (utility) to multiple legitimate information consumers. State of the art approaches have predominantly focused on privacy. This paper presents the first information-theoretic approach that promises an analytical model guaranteeing tight bounds of how much utility is possible for a given level of privacy and vice-versa.

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arXiv2010

Utility and Privacy of Data Sources: Can Shannon Help Conceal and Reveal Information?

The problem of private information "leakage" (inadvertently or by malicious design) from the myriad large centralized searchable data repositories drives the need for an analytical framework that quantifies unequivocally how safe private data can be (privacy) while still providing useful benefit (utility) to multiple legitimate information consumers. Rate distortion theory is shown to be a natural choice to develop such a framework which includes the following: modeling of data sources, developing application independent utility and privacy metrics, quantifying utility-privacy tradeoffs irrespective of the type of data sources or the methods of providing privacy, developing a side-information model for dealing with questions of external knowledge, and studying a successive disclosure problem for multiple query data sources.

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arXiv2010

A General Coding Scheme for Two-User Fading Interference Channels

A Han-Kobayashi based achievable scheme is presented for ergodic fading two-user Gaussian interference channels (IFCs) with perfect channel state information at all nodes and Gaussian codebooks with no time-sharing. Using max-min optimization techniques, it is shown that jointly coding across all states performs at least as well as separable coding for the sub-classes of uniformly weak (every sub-channel is weak) and hybrid (mix of strong and weak sub-channels that do not achieve the interference-free sum-capacity) IFCs. For the uniformly weak IFCs, sufficient conditions are obtained for which the sum-rate is maximized when interference is ignored at both receivers.

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arXiv2009

Frequency of Occurrence and Information Entropy of American Sign Language

American Sign Language (ASL) uses a series of hand based gestures as a replacement for words to allow the deaf to communicate. Previous work has shown that although it takes longer to make signs than to say the equivalent words, on average sentences can be completed in about the same time. This leaves unresolved, however, precisely why that should be the case. This paper reports a determination of the empirical entropy and redundancy in the set of handshapes of ASL. In this context, the entropy refers to the average information content in a unit of data. It is found that the handshapes, as fundamental units of ASL, are less redundant than phonemes, the equivalent fundamental units of spoken English, and that their entropy is much closer to the maximum possible information content. This explains why the slower signs can produce sentences in the same time as speaking; the low redundancy compensates for the slow rate of sign production. In addition to this precise quantification, this work is also novel in its approach towards quantifying an aspect of the ASL alphabet. Unlike spoken and written languages, frequency analysis of ASL is difficult due to the fact that every sign is composed of phonemes that are created through a combination of manual and a relatively large and imprecise set of bodily features. Focusing on handshapes as the ubiquitous and universal feature of all sign languages permits a precise quantitative analysis. As interest in visual electronic communication explodes within the deaf community, this work also paves the way for more precise automated sign recognition and synthesis.

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arXiv2009

K-User Fading Interference Channels: The Ergodic Very Strong Case

Sufficient conditions required to achieve the interference-free capacity region of ergodic fading K-user interference channels (IFCs) are obtained. In particular, this capacity region is shown to be achieved when every receiver decodes all K transmitted messages such that the channel statistics and the waterfilling power policies for all K (interference-free) links satisfy a set of K(K-1) ergodic very strong conditions. The result is also of independent interest in combinatorics.

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arXiv2009

Ergodic Layered Erasure One-Sided Interference Channels

The sum capacity of a class of layered erasure one-sided interference channels is developed under the assumption of no channel state information at the transmitters. Outer bounds are presented for this model and are shown to be tight for the following sub-classes: i) weak, ii) strong (mix of strong but not very strong (SnVS) and very strong (VS)), iii) ergodic very strong (mix of strong and weak), and (iv) a sub-class of mixed interference (mix of SnVS and weak). Each sub-class is uniquely defined by the fading statistics.

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arXiv2009

Secrecy capacity of a class of orthogonal relay eavesdropper channels

The secrecy capacity of relay channels with orthogonal components is studied in the presence of an additional passive eavesdropper node. The relay and destination receive signals from the source on two orthogonal channels such that the destination also receives transmissions from the relay on its channel. The eavesdropper can overhear either one or both of the orthogonal channels. Inner and outer bounds on the secrecy capacity are developed for both the discrete memoryless and the Gaussian channel models. For the discrete memoryless case, the secrecy capacity is shown to be achieved by a partial decode-and-forward (PDF) scheme when the eavesdropper can overhear only one of the two orthogonal channels. Two new outer bounds are presented for the Gaussian model using recent capacity results for a Gaussian multi-antenna point-to-point channel with a multi-antenna eavesdropper. The outer bounds are shown to be tight for two sub-classes of channels. The first sub-class is one in which the source and relay are clustered and the and the eavesdropper receives signals only on the channel from the source and the relay to the destination, for which the PDF strategy is optimal. The second is a sub-class in which the source does not transmit to the relay, for which a noise-forwarding strategy is optimal.

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arXiv2009

Opportunistic Communications in Fading Multiaccess Relay Channels

The problem of optimal resource allocation is studied for ergodic fading orthogonal multiaccess relay channels (MARCs) in which the users (sources) communicate with a destination with the aid of a half-duplex relay that transmits on a channel orthogonal to that used by the transmitting sources. Under the assumption that the instantaneous fading state information is available at all nodes, the maximum sum-rate and the optimal user and relay power allocations (policies) are developed for a decode-and-forward (DF) relay. With the observation that a DF relay results in two multiaccess channels, one at the relay and the other at the destination, a single known lemma on the sum-rate of two intersecting polymatroids is used to determine the DF sum-rate and the optimal user and relay policies. The lemma also enables a broad topological classification of fading MARCs into one of three types. The first type is the set of partially clustered MARCs where a user is clustered either with the relay or with the destination such that the users waterfill on their bottle-neck links to the distant receiver. The second type is the set of clustered MARCs where all users are either proximal to the relay or to the destination such that opportunistic multiuser scheduling to one of the receivers is optimal. The third type consists of arbitrarily clustered MARCs which are a combination of the first two types, and for this type it is shown that the optimal policies are opportunistic non-waterfilling solutions. The analysis is extended to develop the rate region of a K-user orthogonal half-duplex MARC. Finally, cutset outer bounds are used to show that DF achieves the capacity region for a class of clustered orthogonal half-duplex MARCs.

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arXiv2008

Relay vs. User Cooperation in Time-Duplexed Multiaccess Networks

The performance of user-cooperation in a multi-access network is compared to that of using a wireless relay. Using the total transmit and processing power consumed at all nodes as a cost metric, the outage probabilities achieved by dynamic decode-and-forward (DDF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) are compared for the two networks. A geometry-inclusive high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) outage analysis in conjunction with area-averaged numerical simulations shows that user and relay cooperation achieve a maximum diversity of K and 2 respectively for a K-user multiaccess network under both DDF and AF. However, when accounting for energy costs of processing and communication, relay cooperation can be more energy efficient than user cooperation, i.e., relay cooperation achieves coding (SNR) gains, particularly in the low SNR regime, that override the diversity advantage of user cooperation.

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arXiv2008

Sum-Capacity of Ergodic Fading Interference and Compound Multiaccess Channels

The problem of resource allocation is studied for two-sender two-receiver fading Gaussian interference channels (IFCs) and compound multiaccess channels (C-MACs). The senders in an IFC communicate with their own receiver (unicast) while those in a C-MAC communicate with both receivers (multicast). The instantaneous fading state between every transmit-receive pair in this network is assumed to be known at all transmitters and receivers. Under an average power constraint at each source, the sum-capacity of the C-MAC and the power policy that achieves this capacity is developed. The conditions defining the classes of strong and very strong ergodic IFCs are presented and the multicast sum-capacity is shown to be tight for both classes.

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arXiv2008

Coalitions in Cooperative Wireless Networks

Cooperation between rational users in wireless networks is studied using coalitional game theory. Using the rate achieved by a user as its utility, it is shown that the stable coalition structure, i.e., set of coalitions from which users have no incentives to defect, depends on the manner in which the rate gains are apportioned among the cooperating users. Specifically, the stability of the grand coalition (GC), i.e., the coalition of all users, is studied. Transmitter and receiver cooperation in an interference channel (IC) are studied as illustrative cooperative models to determine the stable coalitions for both flexible (transferable) and fixed (non-transferable) apportioning schemes. It is shown that the stable sum-rate optimal coalition when only receivers cooperate by jointly decoding (transferable) is the GC. The stability of the GC depends on the detector when receivers cooperate using linear multiuser detectors (non-transferable). Transmitter cooperation is studied assuming that all receivers cooperate perfectly and that users outside a coalition act as jammers. The stability of the GC is studied for both the case of perfectly cooperating transmitters (transferrable) and under a partial decode-and-forward strategy (non-transferable). In both cases, the stability is shown to depend on the channel gains and the transmitter jamming strengths.

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arXiv2008

On the Sum-Capacity of Degraded Gaussian Multiaccess Relay Channels

The sum-capacity is studied for a K-user degraded Gaussian multiaccess relay channel (MARC) where the multiaccess signal received at the destination from the K sources and relay is a degraded version of the signal received at the relay from all sources, given the transmit signal at the relay. An outer bound on the capacity region is developed using cutset bounds. An achievable rate region is obtained for the decode-and-forward (DF) strategy. It is shown that for every choice of input distribution, the rate regions for the inner (DF) and outer bounds are given by the intersection of two K-dimensional polymatroids, one resulting from the multiaccess link at the relay and the other from that at the destination. Although the inner and outer bound rate regions are not identical in general, for both cases, a classical result on the intersection of two polymatroids is used to show that the intersection belongs to either the set of active cases or inactive cases, where the two bounds on the K-user sum-rate are active or inactive, respectively. It is shown that DF achieves the capacity region for a class of degraded Gaussian MARCs in which the relay has a high SNR link to the destination relative to the multiaccess link from the sources to the relay. Otherwise, DF is shown to achieve the sum-capacity for an active class of degraded Gaussian MARCs for which the DF sum-rate is maximized by a polymatroid intersection belonging to the set of active cases. This class is shown to include the class of symmetric Gaussian MARCs where all users transmit at the same power.

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arXiv2007

Opportunistic Communications in an Orthogonal Multiaccess Relay Channel

The problem of resource allocation is studied for a two-user fading orthogonal multiaccess relay channel (MARC) where both users (sources) communicate with a destination in the presence of a relay. A half-duplex relay is considered that transmits on a channel orthogonal to that used by the sources. The instantaneous fading state between every transmit-receive pair in this network is assumed to be known at both the transmitter and receiver. Under an average power constraint at each source and the relay, the sum-rate for the achievable strategy of decode-and-forward (DF) is maximized over all power allocations (policies) at the sources and relay. It is shown that the sum-rate maximizing policy exploits the multiuser fading diversity to reveal the optimality of opportunistic channel use by each user. A geometric interpretation of the optimal power policy is also presented.

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