arXiv subjects

Xiong Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Xiong Zhang.

34 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Distributed Privacy Preserving Iterative Summation Protocols

In this paper, we study the problem of summation evaluation of secrets. The secrets are distributed over a network of nodes that form a ring graph. Privacy-preserving iterative protocols for computing the sum of the secrets are proposed, which are compatible with node join and leave situations. Theoretic bounds are derived regarding the utility and accuracy, and the proposed protocols are shown to comply with differential privacy requirements. Based on utility, accuracy and privacy, we also provide guidance on appropriate selections of random noise parameters. Additionally, a few numerical examples that demonstrate their effectiveness are provided.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

Teddy: A System for Interactive Review Analysis

Reviews are integral to e-commerce services and products. They contain a wealth of information about the opinions and experiences of users, which can help better understand consumer decisions and improve user experience with products and services. Today, data scientists analyze reviews by developing rules and models to extract, aggregate, and understand information embedded in the review text. However, working with thousands of reviews, which are typically noisy incomplete text, can be daunting without proper tools. Here we first contribute results from an interview study that we conducted with fifteen data scientists who work with review text, providing insights into their practices and challenges. Results suggest data scientists need interactive systems for many review analysis tasks. In response we introduce Teddy, an interactive system that enables data scientists to quickly obtain insights from reviews and improve their extraction and modeling pipelines.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2019

End-to-end Hand Mesh Recovery from a Monocular RGB Image

In this paper, we present a HAnd Mesh Recovery (HAMR) framework to tackle the problem of reconstructing the full 3D mesh of a human hand from a single RGB image. In contrast to existing research on 2D or 3D hand pose estimation from RGB or/and depth image data, HAMR can provide a more expressive and useful mesh representation for monocular hand image understanding. In particular, the mesh representation is achieved by parameterizing a generic 3D hand model with shape and relative 3D joint angles. By utilizing this mesh representation, we can easily compute the 3D joint locations via linear interpolations between the vertexes of the mesh, while obtain the 2D joint locations with a projection of the 3D joints.To this end, a differentiable re-projection loss can be defined in terms of the derived representations and the ground-truth labels, thus making our framework end-to-end trainable.Qualitative experiments show that our framework is capable of recovering appealing 3D hand mesh even in the presence of severe occlusions.Quantitatively, our approach also outperforms the state-of-the-art methods for both 2D and 3D hand pose estimation from a monocular RGB image on several benchmark datasets.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2018

Locating earthquakes with a network of seismic stations via a deep learning method

The accurate and automated determination of earthquake locations is still a challenging endeavor. However, such information is critical for monitoring seismic activity and assessing potential hazards in real time. Recently, a convolutional neural network was applied to detect earthquakes from single-station waveforms and approximately map events across several large surface areas. In this study, we locate 194 earthquakes induced during oil and gas operations in Oklahoma, USA, within an error range of approximately 4.9 km on average to the epicenter and 1.0 km to the depth in catalogs with data from 30 network stations by applying the fully convolutional network. The network is trained by 1,013 historic events, and the output is a 3D volume of the event location probability in the Earth. The trained system requires approximately one hundredth of a second to locate an event without the need for any velocity model or human interference.

physics.geo-ph↗

arXiv2017

MURS: Mitigating Memory Pressure in Service-oriented Data Processing Systems

Although a data processing system often works as a batch processing system, many enterprises deploy such a system as a service, which we call the service-oriented data processing system. It has been shown that in-memory data processing systems suffer from serious memory pressure. The situation becomes even worse for the service-oriented data processing systems due to various reasons. For example, in a service-oriented system, multiple submitted tasks are launched at the same time and executed in the same context in the resources, comparing with the batch processing mode where the tasks are processed one by one. Therefore, the memory pressure will affect all submitted tasks, including the tasks that only incur the light memory pressure when they are run alone. In this paper, we find that the reason why memory pressure arises is because the running tasks produce massive long-living data objects in the limited memory space. Our studies further reveal that the long-living data objects are generated by the API functions that are invoked by the in-memory processing frameworks. Based on these findings, we propose a method to classify the API functions based on the memory usage rate. Further, we design a scheduler called MURS to mitigate the memory pressure. We implement MURS in Spark and conduct the experiments to evaluate the performance of MURS. The results show that when comparing to Spark, MURS can 1) decrease the execution time of the submitted jobs by up to 65.8\%, 2) mitigate the memory pressure in the server by decreasing the garbage collection time by up to 81\%, and 3) reduce the data spilling, and hence disk I/O, by approximately 90\%.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2017

Multi-color optical monitoring of the quasar 3C 273 from 2005 to 2016

We have monitored the quasar 3C 273 in optical $V$, $R$ and $I$ bands from 2005 to 2016. Intraday variability (IDV) is detected on seven nights. The variability amplitudes for most of nights are less than 10\% and four nights more than 20\%. When considering the nights with time spans $>4$ hours, the value of duty cycle (DC) is 14.17 per cent. Over the twelve years, the overall magnitude and color index variabilities are $\bigtriangleup I=0^{\rm m}.67$, $\bigtriangleup R=0^{\rm m}.72$, $\bigtriangleup V=0^{\rm m}.68$, and $\bigtriangleup (V-R)=0^{\rm m}.25$ respectively. The largest clear IDV has an amplitude of 42% over just 5.8 minutes and the weakest detected IDV is 5.4% over 175 minutes. The BWB (bluer when brighter) chromatic trend is dominant for 3C 273 and appears at different flux levels on intraday timescales. The BWB trend exists for short-term timescales and intermediate-term timescales but different timescales have different correlations. There is no BWB trend for our whole time-series data sets. A significant anti-correlation between BWB trend and length of timescales is found. Combining with $V$-band data from previous works, we find a possible quasi-periodicity of $P=3918\pm1112$ days. The possible explanations for the observed variability, BWB chromatic trend and periodicity are discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2016

Lifetime-Based Memory Management for Distributed Data Processing Systems

In-memory caching of intermediate data and eager combining of data in shuffle buffers have been shown to be very effective in minimizing the re-computation and I/O cost in distributed data processing systems like Spark and Flink. However, it has also been widely reported that these techniques would create a large amount of long-living data objects in the heap, which may quickly saturate the garbage collector, especially when handling a large dataset, and hence would limit the scalability of the system. To eliminate this problem, we propose a lifetime-based memory management framework, which, by automatically analyzing the user-defined functions and data types, obtains the expected lifetime of the data objects, and then allocates and releases memory space accordingly to minimize the garbage collection overhead. In particular, we present Deca, a concrete implementation of our proposal on top of Spark, which transparently decomposes and groups objects with similar lifetimes into byte arrays and releases their space altogether when their lifetimes come to an end. An extensive experimental study using both synthetic and real datasets shows that, in comparing to Spark, Deca is able to 1) reduce the garbage collection time by up to 99.9%, 2) to achieve up to 22.7x speed up in terms of execution time in cases without data spilling and 41.6x speedup in cases with data spilling, and 3) to consume up to 46.6% less memory.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2015

Multi-color optical monitoring of Mrk 501 from 2010 to 2015

We have monitored the BL Lac object Mrk 501 in optical $V$, $R$ and $I$ bands from 2010 to 2015. For Mrk 501, the presence of strong host galaxy component can affect the results of photometry. After subtracting the host galaxy contributions, the source shows intraday and long-term variabilities for optical flux and color indices. The average variability amplitudes of $V$, $R$ and $I$ bands are $22.05\%, 22.25\%, 23.82\%$ respectively, and the value of duty cycle 14.87 per cent. A minimal variability timescale of 106 minutes is detected. No significant time lag between $V$ and $I$ bands is found on one night. The bluer-when-brighter (BWB) trend is dominant for Mrk 501 on intermediate, short and intraday timescales which supports the shock-in-jet model. For the long timescale, Mrk 501 in different state can have different BWB trend. The corresponding results of non-correcting host galaxy contributions are also presented.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

The beaming effect and $\rmγ$-ray emission for Fermi blazars

We study the $\rmγ$-ray luminosity and beaming effect for Fermi blazars. Our results are as follows. (i) There are significant correlations between $\rmγ$-ray luminosity and radio core luminosity, and between $\rmγ$-ray luminosity and $\rm{R_{v}}$, which suggests that the $\rmγ$-ray emissions have strong beaming effect. (ii) Using the $\rm{L_{ext}/M_{abs}}$ as an indicator of environment effects, we find that there have no significant correlation between $\rmγ$-ray luminosity and $\rm{L_{ext}/M_{abs}}$ for all sources when remove the effect of redshift. FSRQs considered alone also do not show a significant correlation, while BL Lacs still show a significant correlation when remove the effect of redshift. These results suggest that the $\rmγ$-ray emission may be affected by environment on the kiloparsec-scale for BL Lacs.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

From the "blazar sequence" to unification of blazars and radio galaxies

Based on a large Fermi blazar sample, the blazar sequence (synchrotron peak frequency $ν_{\rm peak}$ versus synchrotron peak luminosity $L_{\rm peak}$) is revisited. It is found that there is significant anti-correlation between $ν_{\rm peak}$ and $L_{\rm peak}$ for blazars. However, after being Doppler corrected, the anti-correlation disappears. The jet cavity power ($P_{\rm jet}$) is estimated from extended radio luminosity. So it is free of beaming effect. We find that there are significant anti-correlations between $P_{\rm jet}$ and beam-corrected $ν_{\rm peak}^{'}$ for both blazars and radio galaxies, which supports the blazar sequence and unification of blazars and radio galaxies (an alternative relationship is the correlation between jet power and $γ$-ray photon index).

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Jet/accretion and Unification for FSRQs/FRII and BL Lac objects/FRI radio galaxies

We compiled a sample of 24 flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), 21 BL Lacs, 13 FRI and 12 FRII radio galaxies to study the jet power and broad-line luminosity relation, and the jet power and black hole mass relation. Furthermore, we obtain the histograms of key parameters. Our main results are as the follows:(i) We found that the FSRQs are roughly separated from BL Lacs by the Ledlow-Owen FRI/FRII dividing line in the $\rm{\log{P_{jet}}-\log{M}}$ plane. This result supports the unification model that BL Lacs unify with FRI radio galaxies and FSRQs unify with FRII radio galaxies.(ii)We found that the coefficient of the best-fit linear regression equation of $\rm{\log{L_{BLR}}-\log{P_{jet}}}$ relation is very close to 1 for our sample. The correlation between broad line luminosity and jet power is significant which supports that jet power has a close link with accretion.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

The jets-accretion relation, mass-luminosity relation in Fermi blazars

A sample of 111 Fermi blazars each with a well-established radio core luminosity, broad-line luminosity, bolometric luminosity and black hole mass has been compiled from the literatures.We present a significant correlation between radio core and broad-line emission luminosities that supports a close link between accretion processes and relativistic jets. Analysis reveals a relationship of $\rm{LogL_{BLR}\sim(0.81\pm0.06)LogL_{R}^{C}}$ which is consistant with theoretical predicted coefficient and supports that blazar jets are powered by energy extraction from a rapidly spinning Kerr black hole through the magnetic field provided by the accretion disk. Through studying the correlation between the intrinsic bolometric luminosity and the black hole mass, we find a relationship of $\rm{{Log}\frac{L_{in}}{L_{\odot}}=(0.95\pm0.26){Log}\frac{M}{M_{\odot}}+(3.53\pm2.24)}$ which supports mass-luminosity relation for Fermi blazars derived in this work is a powerlaw relation similar to that for main-sequence stars. Finally, evolutionary sequence of blazars is discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Black hole mass, jet power and accretion in AGN

We study the relation between accretion, black hole mass and jet power in AGN, by using a large group of blazars detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope and radio galaxies. Our main results are as follows. (i) The jet power of FSRQs and FRII-HEG depends on the black hole mass, which suggests that the FSRQs and FRII-HEG are in Radiation-Pressure Dominated regime. The jet power of BL Lacs and FRI-LEG depends on the accretion, which suggests that the BL Lacs and FRI-LEG are in the Gas-Pressure Dominated regime. (ii) We find that most of FSRQs and BL Lacs have $\rm{P_{jet}>L_{BZ}^{max}}$, which suggests that the Blandford-Znajek mechanism is insufficient to explain the jet power of these objects. (iii) The FSRQs are roughly separated from BL Lacs by the Ledlow-Owen's dividing line in the $\rm{\log P_{jet}-\log M}$ plane, which supports the unified scheme of AGN. (iv) The FSRQs and BL Lacs have a clear division at $\rm{L_{bol}/L_{Edd}\sim0.01}$, and the distribution of Eddington ratios of BL Lacs and FSRQs exhibits a bimodal nature, which imply that the accretion mode of FSRQs may be different from that of BL Lacs. (v) We find a significant correlation between broad line luminosity and jet power, which supports a direct tight connection between jet power and accretion.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Basic properties of Fermi blazars and the "blazar sequence"

By statistically analyzing a large sample which includes blazars of Fermi detection (FBs) and non-Fermi detection (NFBs), we find that there are significant differences between FBs and NFBs for redshift, black hole mass, jet kinetic power from "cavity" power, broad-line luminosity, and ratio of core luminosity to absolute V-band magnitude ($R_{\rm v}$), but not for ratio of radio core to extended flux ($R_{\rm c}$) and Eddington ratio. Compared with NFBs, FBs have larger mean jet power, $R_{\rm c}$ and $R_{\rm v}$ while smaller mean redshift, black hole mass, broad-line luminosity. These results support that the beaming effect is main reason for differences between FBs and NFBs, and that FBs are likely to have a more powerful jet. For both Fermi and non-Fermi blazars, there are significant correlations between jet power and the accretion rate (traced by the broad-emission-lines luminosity), between jet power and black hole mass; for Fermi blazars, the black hole mass does not have significant influence on jet power while for non-Fermi blazars, both accretion rate and black hole mass have contributions to the jet power. Our results support the "blazar sequence" and show that synchrotron peak frequency ($ν_{\rm peak}$) is associated with accretion rate but not with black hole mass.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Intrinsic $γ$-ray luminosity, black hole mass, jet and accretion in Fermi blazars

We have analyzed a large sample of clean blazars detected by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Using literature and calculation, we obtained intrinsic $γ$-ray luminosity excluding beaming effect, black hole mass, broad-line luminosity (used as a proxy for disk luminosity), jet kinetic power from "cavity" power and bulk Lorentz factor for parsec-scale radio emission, and studied the distributions of these parameters and relations between them. Our main results are as follows. (i) After excluding beaming effect and redshift effect, intrinsic $γ$-ray luminosity with broad line luminosity, black hole mass and Eddington ratio have significant correlations. Our results confirm the physical distinction between BL Lacs and FSRQs. (ii) The correlation between broad line luminosity and jet power is significant which supports that jet power has a close link with accretion. Jet power depends on both the Eddington ratio and black hole mass. We also obtain $LogL_{\rm BLR}\sim(0.98\pm0.07)Log P_{\rm jet}$ for all blazars, which is consistent with the theoretical predicted coefficient. These results support that jets are powered by energy extraction from both accretion and black hole spin (i.e., not by accretion only). (iii) For almost all BL Lacs, $P_{\rm jet}>L_{\rm disk}$; for most of FSRQs, $P_{\rm jet}<L_{\rm disk}$. The "jet-dominance" (parameterized as $\frac{P_{\rm jet}}{L_{\rm disk}}$) is mainly controlled by the bolometric luminosity. Finally, the radiative efficiency of $γ$-ray and properties of TeV blazars detected by Fermi LAT were discussed.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2007

Three-dimensional multi-mesh material point method for solving collision problems

Contact algorithm between different bodies plays an important role in solving collision problems. Usually it is not easy to be treated very well. Several ones for material point method were proposed by Bardenhangen, Brackbill, and Sulsky\cite{Bardenhagen2000,Bardenhagen2001}, Hu and Chen\cite{Hu_Chen2003}. An improved one for three-dimensional material point method is presented in this paper. The improved algorithm emphasizes the energy conservation of the system and faithfully recovers opposite acting forces between contacting bodies. Contrasted to the one by Bardenhagen, both the normal and tangential contacting forces are more appropriately applied to the contacting bodies via the contacting nodes of the background mesh; Contrasted to the one by Hu and Chen, not only the tangential velocities but also the normal ones are handled separately in respective individual mesh. This treatment ensures not only the contact/sliding/separation procedure but also the friction between contacting bodies are recovered. The presented contact algorithm is validated via numerical experiments including rolling simulation, impact of elastic spheres, impact of a Taylor bar and impact of plastic spheres. The numerical results show that the multi-mesh material point method with the improved contact algorithm is more suitable for solving collision problems.

physics.comp-ph↗