On Achieving Privacy-Preserving State-of-the-Art Edge Intelligence

Deep Neural Network (DNN) Inference in Edge Computing, often called Edge Intelligence, requires solutions to insure that sensitive data confidentiality and intellectual property are not revealed in the process. Privacy-preserving Edge Intelligence is only emerging, despite the growing prevalence of Edge Computing as a context of Machine-Learning-as-a-Service. Solutions are yet to be applied, and possibly adapted, to state-of-the-art DNNs. This position paper provides an original assessment of the compatibility of existing techniques for privacy-preserving DNN Inference with the characteristics of an Edge Computing setup, highlighting the appropriateness of secret sharing in this context. We then address the future role of model compression methods in the research towards secret sharing on DNNs with state-of-the-art performance.

Feature-Model-Guided Online Learning for Self-Adaptive Systems

A self-adaptive system can modify its own structure and behavior at runtime based on its perception of the environment, of itself and of its requirements. To develop a self-adaptive system, software developers codify knowledge about the system and its environment, as well as how adaptation actions impact on the system. However, the codified knowledge may be insufficient due to design time uncertainty, and thus a self-adaptive system may execute adaptation actions that do not have the desired effect. Online learning is an emerging approach to address design time uncertainty by employing machine learning at runtime. Online learning accumulates knowledge at runtime by, for instance, exploring not-yet executed adaptation actions. We address two specific problems with respect to online learning for self-adaptive systems. First, the number of possible adaptation actions can be very large. Existing online learning techniques randomly explore the possible adaptation actions, but this can lead to slow convergence of the learning process. Second, the possible adaptation actions can change as a result of system evolution. Existing online learning techniques are unaware of these changes and thus do not explore new adaptation actions, but explore adaptation actions that are no longer valid. We propose using feature models to give structure to the set of adaptation actions and thereby guide the exploration process during online learning. Experimental results involving four real-world systems suggest that considering the hierarchical structure of feature models may speed up convergence by 7.2% on average. Considering the differences between feature models before and after an evolution step may speed up convergence by 64.6% on average. [...]