Greedy algorithms for actor redeployment in wireless sensor–actor networks

In a wireless sensor–actor network, an actor usually has to provide services as soon as the actor receives the event signals from the sensors. Therefore, the performance of a wireless sensor–actor network depends on the actor deployment. In many circumstances, actors may fail or go out to deal with events, and thus, the sensors covered by the missing actors could be not to be reachable in time. This introduces the necessity of actor redeployment. In this paper, we study the problems of redeploying actors to maximize the number of sensors able to be covered by actors and to maximize the decrease of the residual distances of sensors, respectively. Both problems are shown to be NP-complete. Additionally, we prove that the greedy algorithm for each problem has an approximation ratio of 2. Simulations show that the greedy algorithm for each problem performs well.     

Maximizing network utilization with max–min fairness in wireless sensor networks

The state-of-the-art for optimal data-gathering in wireless sensor networks is to use additive increase algorithms to achieve fair rate allocation while implicity trying to maximize network utilization. For the quantification of the problem we present a receiver capacity model to capture the interference existing in a wireless network. We also provide empirical evidence to motivate the applicability of this model to a real CSMA based wireless network. Using this model, we explicitly formulate the problem of maximizing the network utilization subject to a max–min fair rate allocation constraint in the form of two coupled linear programs. We first show how the max–min rate can be computed efficiently for a given network. We then adopt a dual-based approach to maximize the network utilization. The analysis of the dual shows the sub-optimality of previously proposed additive increase algorithms with respect to bandwidth efficiency. Although in theory a dual-based sub-gradient search algorithm can take a long time to converge, we find empirically that setting all shadow prices to an equal and small constant value, results in near-optimal solutions within one iteration (within 2% of the optimum in 99.65% of the cases). This results in a fast heuristic distributed algorithm that has a nice intuitive explanation—rates are allocated sequentially after rank ordering flows based on the number of downstream receivers whose bandwidth they consume. We also investigate the near optimal performance of this heuristic by comparing the rank ordering of the source rates obtained from the heuristic to the solutions obtained by solving the linear program.

Ring–mesh topology design in a SONET–WDM network

This article deals with a ring–mesh network design problem arising from the deployment of an optical transport network. The problem seeks to partition the set of demand pairs to a number of rings and a mesh cluster, and to determine the location of the optical cross-connect system (OXC), while minimizing the total cost of optical add-drop multiplexers (OADMs), OXCs, and fiber links. We formulate this problem as a zero-one integer programming problem. In strengthening the formulation, we develop some valid inequalities for the zero-one quadratic (knapsack) polytope and a column generation formulation that eliminates the symmetry of ring configurations. Also, we prescribe an effective tabu search procedure for finding a good quality feasible solution, which is also used as a starting column for the column generation procedure. Computational results show that the proposed solution procedure provides tight lower and upper bounds within a reasonable time bound.     

Auction–Stackelberg game framework for access permission in femtocell networks with multiple network operators

With the explosive growth of indoor data traffic in forthcoming fifth generation cellular networks, it is imperative for mobile network operators to improve network coverage and capacity. Femtocells are widely recognized as a promising technology to address these demands. As femtocells are sold or loaned by a mobile network operator (MNO) to its residential or enterprise customers, MNOs usually employ refunding scheme to compensate the femtocell holders (FHs) providing indoor access to other subscribers by configuring the femtocell to operate in open or hybrid access mode. Due to the selfishness nature, competition between network operators as well as femtocell holders makes it challenging for operators to select appropriate FHs for trading access resources. This inspires us to develop an effective refunding framework, with aim to improve overall network resource utilization, through promoting FHs to make reasonable access permission for well-matched macro users. In this paper, we develop a two-stage auction–Stackelberg game (ASGF) framework for access permission in femtocell networks, where MNO and mobile virtual network operator lease access resources from multiple FHs. We first design an auction mechanism to determine the winner femtocell that fulfils the access request of macro users. We next formulate the access permission problem between the winner femtocell and operators as a Stackelberg game, and theoretically prove the existence of unique equilibrium. As a higher system payoff can be gained by improving individual players’ payoff in the game, each player can choose the best response to others’ action by implementing access permission, while avoiding solving a complicated optimization problem. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of our proposed ASGF based refunding framework and the overall network efficiency can be improved significantly.     

Applications of Huang–Rhys theory in semiconductor optical spectroscopy

A brief review of Huang–Rhys theory and Albrechtos theory is provided,and their connection and applications are discussed.The former is a first order perturbative theory on optical transitions intended for applications such as absorption and emission involving localized defect or impurity centers,emphasizing lattice relaxation or mixing of vibrational states due to electron–phonon coupling.The coupling strength is described by the Huang–Rhys factor.The latter theory is a second order perturbative theory on optical transitions intended for Raman scattering,and can in-principle include electron–phonon coupling in both electronic states and vibrational states.These two theories can potentially be connected through the common effect of lattice relaxation – non-orthonormal vibrational states associated with different electronic states.Because of this perceived connection,the latter theory is often used to explain resonant Raman scattering of LO phonons in bulk semiconductors and further used to describe the size dependence of electron–phonon coupling or Huang–Rhys factor in semiconductor nanostructures.Specifically,the A term in Albrechtos theory is often invoked to describe the multi-LO-phonon resonant Raman peaks in both bulk and nanostructured semiconductors in the literature,due to the misconception that a free-exciton could have a strong lattice relaxation.Without lattice relaxation,the A term will give rise to Rayleigh or elastic scattering.Lattice relaxation is only significant for highly localized defect or impurity states,and should be practically zero for either single particle states or free exciton states in a bulk semiconductor or for confined states in a semiconductor nanostructure that is not extremely small.     

AEETC—adaptive energy-efficient timing control in wireless networks with network coding

Energy is a scarce resource in wireless networks. Network coding has been proposed recently as a means to reduce the number of transmissions and energy consumption. In this paper, we introduce timing control into network coding to further enhance its performance. It is found that when bandwidth is sufficient, the extra delay introduced by waiting for additional data to perform network coding will increase the number of codings without affecting system throughput. Both delay and throughput suffers when bandwidth is insufficient. An adaptive energy-efficient timing control algorithm called AEETC is proposed which can automatically adjust local node’s transmission behavior on the basis of the network traffic conditions. Simulation results demonstrate that AEETC increases network coding by 7% to 60% for light network load and is able to provide good performance in terms of delay, throughput and the number of successful codings.     

On multicast tree construction in IPV4–IPV6 hybrid network

With the IPv4 addresses exhausting and IPv6 emerging, the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay is becoming increasingly heterogeneous and complex: pure IPv4, dual stack and pure IPv6 hosts coexist, and the connectivity limitation between IPv4 and IPv6 hosts requires the overlay protocols to be fit for this hybrid situation. This paper sets out to answer the question of how to construct multicast tree on top of IPv4-IPv6 hybrid network. Our solution is a New Greedy Algorithm (NGA) which eliminates the problem of joining failure in the hybrid network and keeps the efficiency of greedy algorithm in tree construction. Simulation results show that our algorithm has excellent performance, which is very close to the optimal in many cases.     

Chinese TV drama in a regional market: Aspiring to be a cultural actor?

Once isolated from the outside world, Chinese TV exclusively and loyally served as a Party’s propaganda tool, and almost “zero” trans-border TV trade was developed. With China’s unreserved embrace of market economy after the 1980s, TV production has been internationalized, and sporadic cases of overseas trade have taken place. Joining the WTO compelled Chinese TV officials to face increasing challenges from global broadcasters which led them to formulate the “going-global” policy to encourage large scale of TV exportation. China, now, has displayed its aspiration to increase its TV exportation, or put it more ambitiously, to “centralize” a regional Chinese cultural market, including the areas of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and possibly Korean and Japan.     

Balancing CapEx reduction and network stability with stable routing–virtual topology capacity adjustment (SR–VTCA)

This paper investigates the merits of the SR–VTCA (stable routing–virtual topology capacity adjustment) approach as a mechanism to find a beneficial trade-off between network stability and reduction in capital expenditures (CapEx). These are two main objectives for the entities that own the optical infrastructure, such as network operators (NOs), and those also acting as Internet service providers (ISPs). The SR–VTCA scheme is a novel approach to adapt transparent optical networks to time-varying traffic by adjusting the number of lightpaths between node pairs, while keeping the IP routing unchanged. Lightpath bundling (LB) and anycast (AS) switching are combined in SR–VTCA operation to advertise lightpath additions/removals to the IP layer as mere adjustments (increments or decrements) in the capacity, allowing to keep the IP routing stable, and thus, simplifying control plane operations. On the contrary, a fully-reconfigurable (FR) network design, where IP routing can be also modified, would increase the burden in the control plane, but at a higher CapEx reduction, since the optical infrastructure is used more efficiently. In this work, we investigate the CapEx overprovision introduced by SR–VTCA with respect to a FR scheme. In order to do this, SR–VTCA planning problem is first modeled as a MILP formulation. A heuristic procedure based on traffic domination is then proposed to solve large instances of the problem. Exhaustive experiments are conducted comparing the SR–VTCA solutions obtained by the aforementioned MILP and heuristic proposal with solutions found by other optimization methods presented in the literature to solve the FR planning problem. Finally, the results show that SR–VTCA can achieve similar results to the FR case in terms of CapEx reduction, while a huge number of IP reroutings are saved by maintaining IP stability. Thus, SR–VTCA provides an advantageous balance between CapEx overprovisioning and the control plane overhead associated with IP rerouting.     

An intra–inter-cell device-to-device communication scheme to enhance 5G network throughput with delay modeling

As the number of mobile users is growing, so is the demand for more bandwidth. It becomes important that the required bandwidth and spectral resources do not scale with traffic in the next generation of wireless networks [i.e. fifth generation (5G)]. Device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks has been recognized as an essential technique in 5G networks. By applying definite principles and strategies, D2D communication not only increases the spectral and energy efficiency, but also enhances network throughput, network coverage and reduces delay. In this paper, we present an intra–inter-cell D2D communication scheme to enhance throughput of 5G networks. We study call setup delay of two developed communication scenarios and throughput gain comparing three systems. Firstly, we show the enhancements required in current cellular architectures to support inter-cell D2D communication. We develop protocols for two scenarios and demonstrate how architecture entities cooperate for the call setup between D2D users. We measure the overall call setup time for the developed protocols and derive a closed-form delay formula to estimate call setup time probability. Secondly, we perform simulations using a topology similar to that found in realistic urban environments to study throughput gains of the proposed intra–inter-cell D2D communication scheme. We compare three systems in terms of throughput: (1) pure cellular system (with cellular users only), (2) pure cellular system with intra-cell D2D users sharing the same cellular resource, and (3) pure cellular system with intra–inter-cell D2D users sharing the same cellular resource. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme substantially increases the network throughput and spectrum efficiency.     

Encode–decode network with fully connected CRF for dynamic objects detection and static maps reconstruction

The key of robots operating autonomously in dynamic environments is understanding the dynamic characteristics of objects. This paper aims to detect dynamic objects and reconstruct 3D static maps from consecutive scans of scenes. Our work starts from an encode–decode network, which receives two range maps provided by a Velodyne HDL-64 laser scanner and outputs dynamic probability of each point. Since the soft segmentation produced by the network tends to be smooth, a 3D fully connected CRF (Conditional Random Field) is proposed to improve the segmentation performance. Experiments on both the public datasets and real-word platform demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.     

An optimized content delivery approach based on demand–supply theory in disruption-tolerant networks

Telecommunication Systems - Disruption-tolerance networks (DTNs) are suitable for applications that may lack continuous network connectivity. Examples of such applications include coupon...     

Uplink NOMA-based long-term throughput maximization scheme for cognitive radio networks: an actor–critic reinforcement learning approach

Wireless Networks - Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is one of the promising techniques for spectrum efficiency in wireless networks. In this paper, we consider an uplink NOMA cognitive...     

Electronic structure of the pentacene–gold interface: A density-functional theory study

The structural and electronic properties of a pentacene monolayer adsorbed on the Au(1 1 1) surface have been studied with a density-functional theory (DFT) approach. A thermally stable adsorption geometry of the pentacene monolayer on the gold surface is found, from which the adsorption energy per pentacene molecule can be evaluated. Our results illustrate how the electron charge distribution initially present over the clean gold surface is pushed back upon adsorption of the pentacene monolayer; this push-back (pillow effect) leads to a significant work-function decrease for the modified gold surface. The electronic couplings between the highest occupied molecular orbital of pentacene and the Au(1 1 1) surface and between adjacent pentacene molecules within the monolayer, were extracted from the calculated band structures; the pentacene–gold surface electronic coupling is found to be about five times smaller than the electronic coupling between pentacene molecules.     

Performance analysis of weather-dependent satellite–terrestrial network with rate adaptation hybrid free-space optical and radio frequency link

Due to the rapid development of satellite laser communication technology, free-space optical (FSO) links present a promising alternative to traditional radio frequency (RF) links. In this paper, taking the influence of weather factors into consideration, we investigate the performance of the hybrid FSO/RF links where the feeder link operates in the FSO band and the user link operates in the hybrid FSO/RF band. Specifically, the FSO feeder link is modeled by the gamma–gamma distribution in the presence of beam wander and pointing error, and the detection method adopts either the intensity modulation with direct intensity (IM/DD) or heterodyne detection. The RF user link is assumed to follow the shadowed Rician model. In addition, in order to improve the transmission rate of the link under the time-varying satellite–terrestrial channel, a rate adaptation scheme is proposed. The performance of the system under study is evaluated in terms of the outage probability, average bit error rate (BER), and average transmission rate. Our results provide some important insights, for example, (1) due to the constraints of the feeder link and weather factors, there is an upper limit on the outage performance and bit error rate of the hybrid link; (2) the adaptive transmission strategy can significantly improve the transmission rate of the link compared with traditional design.     

Formation of donors in germanium–silicon alloys implanted with hydrogen ions with different energies

The distributions of hydrogen-containing donors in Ge_1–xSi_x (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.06) alloys implanted with hydrogen ions with an energy of 200 and 300 keV and a dose of 1 × 10¹⁵ cm^–2 are studied. It is established that, at the higher ion energy, the limiting donor concentration after postimplantation heat treatment (275°C) is attained within ~30 min and, at the lower energy, within ~320 min. In contrast to donors formed near the surface, a portion of hydrogen-containing donors formed upon the implantation of ions with the higher energy possess the property of bistability. The limiting donor concentration is independent of the ion energy, but decreases from 1.3 × 10¹⁶ to 1.5 × 10¹⁵ cm^–3, as the Si impurity content in the alloy is increased from x = 0.008 to x = 0.062. It is inferred that the observed differences arise from the participation of the surface in the donor formation process, since the surface significantly influences defect-formation processes involving radiation-induced defects, whose generation accompanies implantation.     

Traffic scheduling in hybrid WDM–TDM PON with wavelength-reuse ONUs

Hybrid WDM?CTDM PON (wavelength division multiplexing?Ctime division multiplexing passive optical network) that applies wavelength-independent or colorless ONU (optical network unit) technologies will further reduce implementation and maintenance expenses. The ??wavelength-reuse?? colorless ONU technology imposes a physical constraint in the hybrid WDM?CTDM PON that the same wavelength is used for both upstream and downstream traffic transmission of an ONU. This physical constraint brings a new challenge to developing traffic scheduling algorithms in the network, as upstream traffic scheduling is no longer independent of downstream traffic scheduling and the existing traffic scheduling algorithms that treated the upstream and downstream traffic independently cannot be applied in this case. We propose a new traffic scheduling algorithm that takes both directions?? traffic scheduling into account at the same time. A logical PON concept is defined, and wavelength resource sharing is performed based on reconfiguring logical PONs. Simulation study on this algorithm is conducted, and results show that it achieves efficient wavelength and bandwidth resource sharing in the network.     

Efficient traffic control and lifetime maximization in mobile ad hoc network by using PSO–BAT optimization

Recent developments in dynamic mobile ad-hoc network enhance the network speed and reliability. The nodes in the dynamic ad-hoc network are moving in nature. Due to the increased subscribers in this network, the network traffic has increased to manifold which in turn creating the challenge of maintaining the energy level. In path optimization process in mobile ad-hoc network consumes more energy and the draining of the energy is dependent on network reliability and connectivity. Further, the network also suffers by harmful attacks such as denial of service attack, black hole attack and warm hole attack. The primary focus of this paper is to prevent these attacks with the help of dynamic mobile ad-hoc network on demand protocol and hybrid meta-heuristics methodologies, and also to reduce the energy drain rate. This is achieved by estimating the velocity and fitness value of the nodes. Finally, the empirical simulation results of hybrid particle swarm optimization with bat algorithm (PSO–BAT) shows that the energy drain rate level is reduced 90% as 1 mJ/s than ad-hoc on demand vector. The end-to-end delay minimized to 50% than existing Ad hoc on-demand distance vector routing. The performance metrics routing overhead and execution time has been reduced and throughput is gradually increased in PSO–BAT optimization in dynamic mobile ad hoc network scenario.

     

Self-tuning in integral sliding mode control with a Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm

In high-precision motion systems, tracking often comes with the problem of overshoot or poor settling behavior. To deal with this problem, a sliding mode controller with saturated integrator is studied. For large servo signals, sufficiently removed from the sliding surface, the controller will operate in PD mode. This limits the integrator buffer, and thus the overshoot. At the sliding surface (for small servo signals) the controller operates in PID mode with the aim to avoid steady-state error. Tuning of the controller parameters: the switching gain and the saturation length, strongly affects the tracking performance. For this reason, a self-tuning method is proposed. In the method, the required gradients are partly computed using models of the system and the controller. For the remaining part, sampled data is used to deal with disturbances and model uncertainties. With a Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm numerical problems associated with the gradient computations are avoided. The sliding mode controller with optimized parameters is implemented on an industrial wafer scanner to improve throughput during the wafer stage (chuck) exchange.