Improving perceptual multimedia quality with an adaptable communication protocol

Copyrights @ 2005 University Computing Centre ZagrebInnovations and developments in networking technology have been driven by technical considerations with little analysis of the benefit to the user. In this paper we argue that network parameters that define the network Quality of Service (QoS) must be driven by user-centric parameters such as user expectations and requirements for multimedia transmitted over a network. To this end a mechanism for mapping user-oriented parameters to network QoS parameters is outlined. The paper surveys existing methods for mapping user requirements to the network. An adaptable communication system is implemented to validate the mapping. The architecture adapts to varying network conditions caused by congestion so as to maintain user expectations and requirements. The paper also surveys research in the area of adaptable communications architectures and protocols. Our results show that such a user-biased approach to networking does bring tangible benefits to the user

Intelligent multimedia transmission for back pain treatment

Copyright @ 2002 EUNITERemote, multimedia-based, collaboration in back pain treatment is an option which only recently has come to the attention of clinicians and IT providers. The take up of such applications will inevitably depend on their ability to produce an acceptable level of service over congested and unreliable public networks However, although the problem of multimedia application-level performance is closely linked to both the user perspective of the experience as well as to the service provided by the underlying network, it is rarely studied from an integrated viewpoint. To alleviate this problem in the context of a multimedia application, a method is proposed in this paper for obtaining a priority order of low-level Quality of Service parameters, which would ensure that user-level Quality of Perception is maintained at an optimum level. Thus we present an approach that integrates technical concerns with user perceptual considerations for intelligent decision-making in the construction of tailor-made multimedia communication protocols. The proposed approach, based on multicriteria decision making, incorporates not only classical networking considerations, but, indeed, user preferences as well. Moreover, our approach also opens the possibility for such protocols to dynamically adapt based on a changing operating environment and user preferences

Intelligent multimedia communication for enhanced medical e-collaboration in back pain treatment

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2004 SAGE PublicationsRemote, multimedia-based, collaboration in back pain treatment is an option which only recently has come to the attention of clinicians and IT providers. The take-up of such applications will inevitably depend on their ability to produce an acceptable level of service over congested and unreliable public networks. However, although the problem of multimedia application-level performance is closely linked to both the user perspective of the experience as well as to the service provided by the underlying network, it is rarely studied from an integrated viewpoint. To alleviate this problem, we propose an intelligent mechanism that integrates user-related requirements with the more technical characterization of quality of service, obtaining a priority order of low-level quality of service parameters, which would ensure that user-centred quality of perception is maintained at an optimum level. We show how our framework is capable of suggesting appropriately tailored transmission protocols, by incorporating user requirements in the remote delivery of e-health solutions

Towards a new generation of transport services adapted to multimedia application

Une connexion d'ordre et de fiabilité partiels (POC, partial order connection) est une connexion de transport autorisée à perdre certains objets mais également à les délivrer dans un ordre éventuellement différent de celui d'émission. L'approche POC établit un lien conceptuel entre les protocoles sans connexion au mieux et les protocoles fiables avec connexion. Le concept de POC est motivé par le fait que dans les réseaux hétérogènes sans connexion tels qu'Internet, les paquets transmis sont susceptibles de se perdre et d'arriver en désordre, entraînant alors une réduction des performances des protocoles usuels. De plus, on montre qu'un protocole associé au transport d'un flux multimédia permet une réduction très sensible de l'utilisation des ressources de communication et de mémorisation ainsi qu'une diminution du temps de transit moyen. Dans cet article, une extension temporelle de POC, nommée TPOC (POC temporisé), est introduite. Elle constitue un cadre conceptuel permettant la prise en compte des exigences de qualité de service des applications multimédias réparties. Une architecture offrant un service TPOC est également introduite et évaluée dans le cadre du transport de vidéo MPEG. Il est ainsi démontré que les connexions POC comblent, non seulement le fossé conceptuel entre les protocoles sans connexion et avec connexion, mais aussi qu'ils surpassent les performances des ces derniers lorsque des données multimédias (telles que la vidéo MPEG) sont transportées

A Dynamic Multimedia User-Weight Classification Scheme for IEEE_802.11 WLANs

In this paper we expose a dynamic traffic-classification scheme to support multimedia applications such as voice and broadband video transmissions over IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). Obviously, over a Wi-Fi link and to better serve these applications - which normally have strict bounded transmission delay or minimum link rate requirement - a service differentiation technique can be applied to the media traffic transmitted by the same mobile node using the well-known 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) protocol. However, the given EDCA mode does not offer user differentiation, which can be viewed as a deficiency in multi-access wireless networks. Accordingly, we propose a new inter-node priority access scheme for IEEE 802.11e networks which is compatible with the EDCA scheme. The proposed scheme joins a dynamic user-weight to each mobile station depending on its outgoing data, and therefore deploys inter-node priority for the channel access to complement the existing EDCA inter-frame priority. This provides efficient quality of service control across multiple users within the same coverage area of an access point. We provide performance evaluations to compare the proposed access model with the basic EDCA 802.11 MAC protocol mode to elucidate the quality improvement achieved for multimedia communication over 802.11 WLANs.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC

Adaptive fair channel allocation for QoS enhancement in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs

The emerging widespread use of real-time multimedia applications over wireless networks makes the support of quality of service (QoS) a key problem. In this paper, we focus on QoS support mechanisms for IEEE 802.11 wireless ad-hoc networks. First, we review limitations of the upcoming IEEE 802.11e enhanced DCF (EDCF) and other enhanced MAC schemes that have been proposed to support QoS for 802.11 ad-hoc networks. Then, we describe a new scheme called adaptive fair EDCF that extends EDCF, by increasing the contention window during deferring periods when the channel is busy, and by using an adaptive fast backoff mechanism when the channel is idle. Our scheme computes an adaptive backoff threshold for each priority level by taking into account the channel load. The new scheme significantly improves the quality of multimedia applications. Moreover, it increases the overall throughput obtained both in medium and high load cases. Simulution results show that our new scheme outperforms EDCF and other enhanced schemes. Finally, we show that the adaptive fair EDCF scheme achieves a high degree of fairness among applications of the same priority level

Intelligent protocol adaptation for enhanced medical e-collaboration

Copyright @ 2003 AAAIDistributed multimedia e-health applications have a set specific requirements which must be taken into account effective use is to be made of the limited resources provided by public telecommunication networks. Moreover, there an architectural gap between the provision of network-level Quality of Service (QoS) and user requirements of e-health applications. In this paper, we address the problem bridging this gap from a multi-attribute decision-making perspective in the context of a remote collaborative environment for back pain treatment. We propose intelligent mechanism that integrates user- related requirements with the more technical characterisation Quality of Service. We show how our framework is capable of suggesting appropriately tailored transmission protocols, by incorporating user requirements in the remote delivery e-health solutions

Intelligent synthesis mechanism for deriving streaming priorities of multimedia content

We address the problem of integrating user preferences with network Quality of Service parameters for the streaming of media content, and suggest protocol stack configurations that satisfy user and technical requirements to the best available degree. Our approach is able to handle inconsistencies between user and networking considerations, formulating the problem of construction of tailor-made protocols as a prioritization problem, solvable using fuzzy programming