Queue length‐based load balancing in data center networks

Traffic load balancing in data centers is an important requirement. Traffic dynamics and possibilities of changes in the topology (e.g., failures and asymmetries) make load balancing a challenging task. Existing end‐host–based schemes either employ the predominantly used ECN or combine it with RTT to get congestion information of paths. Both congestion signals, ECN and RTT, have limitations; ECN only tells whether the queue length is above or below a threshold value but does not inform about the extent of congestion; similarly, RTT in data center networks is on the scale of up to few hundreds of microseconds, and current data center operating systems lack fine‐grained microsecond‐level timers. Therefore, there is a need of a new congestion signal which should give accurate information of congestion along the path. Furthermore, in end‐host–based schemes, detecting asymmetries in the topology is challenging due to the inability to accurately measure RTT on the scale of microseconds. This paper presents QLLB, an end‐host–based, queue length–based load balancing scheme. QLLB employs a new queue length–based congestion signal that gives an exact measure of congestion along the paths. Furthermore, QLLB uses relative‐RTT to detect asymmetries in the topology. QLLB is implemented in ns‐3 and compared with ECMP, CONGA, and Hermes. The results show that QLLB significantly improves performance of short flows over the other schemes and performs within acceptable level, of CONGA and Hermes, for long flows. In addition, QLLB effectively detects asymmetric paths and performs better than Hermes under high loads.     

Correction to: Similar Feed-forward Loop Crosstalk Patterns may Impact Robust Information Transport Across E. coli and S. Cerevisiae Transcriptional Networks

Mobile Networks and Applications - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in the author group section. Author Preetam Ghosh’s given name was incorrectly...     

Energy‐efficient data transmission technique for wireless sensor networks based on DSC and virtual MIMO

In a wireless sensor network (WSN), the data transmission technique based on the cooperative multiple‐input multiple‐output (CMIMO) scheme reduces the energy consumption of sensor nodes quite effectively by utilizing the space‐time block coding scheme. However, in networks with high node density, the scheme is ineffective due to the high degree of correlated data. Therefore, to enhance the energy efficiency in high node density WSNs, we implemented the distributed source coding (DSC) with the virtual multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) data transmission technique in the WSNs. The DSC‐MIMO first compresses redundant source data using the DSC and then sends it to a virtual MIMO link. The results reveal that, in the DSC‐MIMO scheme, energy consumption is lower than that in the CMIMO technique; it is also lower in the DSC single‐input single‐output (SISO) scheme, compared to that in the SISO technique at various code rates, compression rates, and training overhead factors. The results also indicate that the energy consumption per bit is directly proportional to the velocity and training overhead factor in all the energy saving schemes.     

Comparative study of maximum power point tracking techniques for hybrid renewable energy system

The power generation demand is increasing day-by-day throughout the world, therefore, the use of hybrid systems becomes a significant solution. The hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) is used for delivering power in various regions in order to overcome intermittence of wind and solar resources. Because of increasing environmental problems, for example, greenhouse gas emission and energy cost have interested novel research into substitute methods in favour of electrical power generation. Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) control method is a vast deal of novel research used for enhancing the efficiency of HRES. The authors have revealed that the hybrid techniques i.e. Global MPPT, fuzzy-neuro systems, Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS), Perturbed and Observe (P&O) + Adaptive Neural Network (ANN) etc. can provide best results as compared to other MPPT control methods. This paper offering a state of art review of MPPT control techniques for HRES.     

Wireless Brain Computer Interface for Smart Home and Medical System

Wireless Personal Communications - The number of aged and disabled people has been increasing worldwide. To look after these people is a big challenge in this era. However, scientists overcome the...     

Measurement of Onset of Structural Relaxation in Melt-Quenched Phase Change Materials

Chalcogenide phase change materials enable non-volatile, low-latency storage-class memory. They are also being explored for new forms of computing such as neuromorphic and in-memory computing. A key challenge, however, is the temporal drift in the electrical resistance of the amorphous states that encode data. Drift, caused by the spontaneous structural relaxation of the newly recreated melt-quenched amorphous phase, has consistently been observed to have a logarithmic dependence in time. Here, it is shown that this observation is valid only in a certain observable timescale. Using threshold-switching voltage as the measured variable, based on temperature-dependent and short timescale electrical characterization, the onset of drift is experimentally measured. This additional feature of the structural relaxation dynamics serves as a new benchmark to appraise the different classical models to explain drift.     

Sustainable Green Fog Computing for Smart Agriculture

Wireless Personal Communications - Medical Body Area Networks or MBANs are gaining popularity in healthcare circles because of the convenience they provide to patients and caregivers and assist in...     

Information Processing and Wireless Energy Harvesting in Interference-Aware Public Safety Networks

In a public safety environment, user equipments (UEs) located within the coverage area of evolved NodeB, relay network services to out-of-coverage UEs. However, relay UEs in public safety environments are typically energy constrained and cannot operate indefinitely without recharging. Radio frequency energy harvesting has been proposed as a solution for recharging wireless UEs. In this paper, we propose a scheme for extending the lifetime of a public safety network by wirelessly charging relay UEs. In addition, we propose a relay selection method considering the battery status of relay UEs. The proposed relay selection is defined as a bipartite graph matching problem and the optimal relay is obtained through matching games technique. The proposed scheme not only improves the network lifetime but also extend the network coverage. We also conduct system level simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme. Simulation results show that the overall performance of the system is improved in terms of achievable throughput and network lifetime.     

Optical Properties of K<Subscript>2</Subscript>O-Li<Subscript>2</Subscript>O-WO<Subscript>3</Subscript>-B<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> Glasses: Evidence of Mixed Alkali Effect

Glass with compositions xK₂O-(30 ? x)Li₂O-10WO₃-60B₂O₃ for 0 ≤ x ≤ 30 mol.% have been prepared using the normal melt quenching technique. The optical reflection and absorption spectra were recorded at room temperature in the wavelength range 300–800 nm. From the absorption edge studies, the values of the optical band gap (E _opt) and Urbach energy (ΔE) have been evaluated. The values of E _opt and ΔE vary non-linearly with composition parameter, showing the mixed alkali effect. The dispersion of the refractive index is discussed in terms of the single oscillator Wemple Di-Domenico model.     

Job search website for illiterate users of Pakistan

Illiteracy is a major hurdle in socio-economic development of Pakistan. Research in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can help in tackling this issue by developing solutions tailored for illiterate population. The work presented within this paper proposes a job search website for illiterate population of KPK province of Pakistan. The designed website does not require any human assistance while searching a job. Moreover, the website uses culturally relevant graphical and audio content. The usability of the website is tested according to the ISO-9241-11 specification. Furthermore, we have studied the effect of the participants’ characteristics, i.e., their age, computer and mobile usage experience on the usability of the website. The results show that the participants found the website usable. Specifically, they could search suitable jobs with a minimal number of clicks and in less time as compared to the usual task completion rates reported throughout the literature. None of the participants’ characteristics were found to be affecting the usability of the website. These results suggest a promising potential of ICT solutions for providing services to illiterate population of Pakistan.