Distributed Adaptation Techniques for Connected Vehicles

In this PhD dissertation, we propose distributed adaptation mechanisms for connected vehicles to deal with the connectivity challenges. To understand the system behavior of the solutions for connected vehicles, we first need to characterize the operational environment. Therefore, we devised a large scale fading model for various link types, including point-to-point vehicular communications and multi-hop connected vehicles. We explored two small scale fading models to define the characteristics of multi-hop connected vehicles. Taking our research into multi-hop connected vehicles one step further, we propose selective information relaying to avoid message congestion due to redundant messages received by the relay vehicle. Results show that the proposed mechanism reduces messaging load by up to 75% without sacrificing environmental awareness. Once we define the channel characteristics, we propose a distributed congestion control algorithm to solve the messaging overhead on the channels as the next research interest of this dissertation. We propose a combined transmit power and message rate adaptation for connected vehicles. The proposed algorithm increases the environmental awareness and achieves the application requirements by considering highly dynamic network characteristics. Both power and rate adaptation mechanisms are performed jointly to avoid one result affecting the other negatively. Results prove that the proposed algorithm can increase awareness by 20% while keeping the channel load and interference at almost the same level as well as improve the average message rate by 18%. As the last step of this dissertation, distributed cooperative dynamic spectrum access technique is proposed to solve the channel overhead and the limited resources issues. The adaptive energy detection threshold, which is used to decide whether the channel is busy, is optimized in this work by using a computationally efficient numerical approach. Each vehicle evaluates the available channels by voting on the information received from one-hop neighbors. An interdisciplinary approach referred to as entropy-based weighting is used for defining the neighbor credibility. Once the vehicle accesses the channel, we propose a decision mechanism for channel switching that is inspired by the optimal flower selection process employed by bumblebees foraging. Experimental results show that by using the proposed distributed cooperative spectrum sensing mechanism, spectrum detection error converges to zero

Rate setting mechanism for the Philippine domestic shipping

The Philippine domestic or interisland shipping probably is one of the few, if not the only, water transport in Asia that is subject to regulations. It is the protection of the public interest that the government, just like a few in the world, regulates public services or utilities, and one of these services is the water transportation. Among the many areas of regulation is the setting and prescription of rates by the government, and by this, the procedure for rate setting is used and consistently applied to any rate restructuring or adjustment. The rate adjustment formula, however, gained criticisms and viewed by the users, i.e., shipowners and shippers, as obsolete and does not serve its purpose to which it was formulated, thus, needs revisiting and its possible reformulation, if indeed found to be ineffective. The research work is an assessment of the rate setting procedure in the Philippine liner shipping which is currently being used by the authorized agency, the Maritime Industry Authority, in charge of regulations and development of the shipping industry in the Philippines. A brief look is taken at the present rate adjustment procedure, its development from the time it was established and its evolution in the present structure. Guidelines and policies formulated and implemented by the authority relative to rates are also presented and reviewed to verify the history and how these issuances have effected changes in the structure of rates in the domestic liner shipping. The evaluation procedure including the application/determination of rates with the methodology used is presented and evaluated whereby verification of the allegations/criticisms made by critics on the identified shortcomings in the rate setting procedure are drawn and thereafter, the proposal on what measures or solutions to take in order to rectify and improve the present rates system and procedure. The final chapter concludes that deregulating fully the rate in the Philippine domestic or interisland trade is a better choice than to continue adopting/using the antiquated formula, which is now regarded as unrealistic and ineffective to its intents and purposes, due to its apparent flaws and defects

From College To Jobs: Making Sense of Labor Market Returns To Higher Education

This report summarizes key findings from recent research on links between higher education and the workforce. Featuring eight brief papers from leading education and workforce experts from around the country, the report offers practical advice for institutional leaders, policymakers, students and their advisers about how to use the increasingly available information on the economic value of higher education. Specifically, the authors' papers and the opening summary explore what various audiences can learn from emerging evidence about: variations in labor market outcomes by program and institution; the value of degrees to jobs both in and out of fields studied; returns to the completion of certain course clusters that don't add up to a degree; and distortions that may result from examining returns to individual degrees rather than "stacked" degrees

The Unique Challenges of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA)

Air transportation is a particularly contentious issue in climate disputes. This concern is because they emit emissions like those produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. Consequently, the aviation industry is recognized as one of the top ten emitters in the world, with emissions expected to soar. As the emissions from the industry begin to rise, the increase raises serious environmental concerns about its global impact and influence on people on the ground. When non-CO2 effects are excluded, aviation emissions began to account for 2.1% of global emissions, leading the aviation industry, national governments, civil society, and international organizations to collaborate to reduce emissions drastically. Accordingly, this led to the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which serves as a global platform for devising laws and standards for the industry, including a comprehensive set of measures to manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to reach the 2050 carbon-neutral goal. The ICAO aims to eliminate all GHG emissions using sustainable alternative fuels, advanced technology, and the world\u27s first market-based mechanism to mitigate aviation emissions. It adopted the International Aviation Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme (CORSIA) in 2016. While this market-based approach to reducing international aviation\u27s runway emissions is viewed as a step in the right direction, more is needed to achieve the sector\u27s required level of profound decarbonization. (CORISA). This study describes the connection between aviation and climate change. It analyses the efficacy of the policy implemented and the environmental benefits of CORSIA in addressing climate change challenges in the aviation industry and the scheme\u27s potential to have a more significant impact and provide long-term solutions. According to the study\u27s findings, adding a required option for binding enforcement will aid in expanding the scope of CORSIA

Discourse Evolution and Power

In Discourse Evolution and Power, I set out my theory of Discourse Stream Analysis (DSA©). After presenting a critique of Critical Discourse Analysis, I establish the principles of DSA including the notion of the subject and the analysis of text over time using linguistic techniques. I then apply DSA principles to two sets of texts about power-sharing. The first concerns the notion of empowerment in the business world. The second comprises articles from four newspapers over an 8 year period centred on the notion of federalism in the context of the relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union. I conclude with some ideas as to how DSA can be taken forward

The international economic and financial order after the pandemic and war

The fifth report in The Future of Banking series, part of the Banking Initiative from the IESE Business School, examines the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine for the international economic and financial order. It centres around three major components: the macroeconomic outlook and the changes needed to the economic policy model (fiscal, monetary and regulatory) to preserve economic and financial stability; the consequences for the international monetary system and the position of the US dollar; and the financial architecture needed to ensure sovereign debt sustainability, with special attention to Europe.-- 1. The international economic and financial order after the pandemic and war: Introduction -- 2. Macro times are a-changing: stabilisation policies after Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine – 3. The international monetary landscape: implications of the Russia-Ukraine war, the rise of China and new digital technologies – 5. Sovereign debt after the pandemic and the war – 6. The international economic and financial order after the pandemic and war: discussions – 7. The international economic and financial order after the pandemic and war: discussionPublished online: 20 February 202

Notes on Business Cycle Theory from a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Perspective

These notes go over some basic aspects of the analysis of business cycles and aggregate fluctuations from a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) perspective. I build a canonical DSGE model with a small number of representative agents and a large set of distortionary wedges standing for various frictions as an organising framework. I use this model to discuss fundamental properties of business cycle dynamics. I start with some of the basic assumptions common to most applied DSGE models, and the modeling of household and firm behaviour. Then I discuss general equilibrium and the response of the economy to various shocks with flexible prices and wages, as well as ways of applying DSGE models with actual data. Finally I add nominal price rigidities to get the standard New Keynesian model, and discuss some open economy issues, fiscal policy and unconventional monetary policy

Technology and Management for Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructures

A total of 30 articles have been published in this special issue, and it consists of 27 research papers, 2 technical notes, and 1 review paper. A total of 104 authors from 9 countries including Korea, Spain, Taiwan, USA, Finland, China, Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Germany participated in writing and submitting very excellent papers that were finally published after the review process had been conducted according to very strict standards. Among the published papers, 13 papers directly addressed words such as sustainable, life cycle assessment (LCA) and CO2, and 17 papers indirectly dealt with energy and CO2 reduction effects. Among the published papers, there are 6 papers dealing with construction technology, but a majority, 24 papers deal with management techniques. The authors of the published papers used various analysis techniques to obtain the suggested solutions for each topic. Listed by key techniques, various techniques such as Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the Taguchi method, machine learning including Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), regression analysis, Strength–Weakness–Opportunity–Threat (SWOT), system dynamics, simulation and modeling, Building Information Model (BIM) with schedule, and graph and data analysis after experiments and observations are identified

The Modernisation of Disabled Students’ Allowances, 2014-2018: Help or hindrance to inclusive teaching and learning?

This research explores the question, “How and to what extent did the Modernisation of DSAs, 2014-2018, help or hinder Inclusive Teaching and Learning in English HEPs?” Six mixed method, semi-structured questionnaire studies were conducted over three academic years with respondents supporting disabled students as: diagnostic assessors for Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs), study skills support tutors, disability advisers, specialist mentors, and managers and heads of disability services. Respondents were both employed or under contract to HEPs, or authorised independent 3rd parties. Respondents also included HEPs’ project managers creating more inclusive teaching and learning (ITL) environments. Additionally, two Freedom of Information Requests (FOIR) were sent to all English HEPs. Three further FOIRs were sent to bodies responsible for regulating and funding English HE and its disabled students. The literature revealed 20+ years of international and UK efforts identifying, defining and operationalising ITL within Widening Participation (WP) activities, in parallel with a philosophical move away from an individualised model of disability to a social model. The literature also revealed that DSA support existed as co-curricular to rather than integrated with ITL environments. Results showed the Modernisation caused disruption in day-to-day delivery of DSA support and impeded progress to integrated ITL environments. Sector-wide definition of and progress to ITL environments was inconsistent in breadth and depth, teaching academics’ professional education lacked content regarding operationalising ITL in daily practice. Most HEPs spent little money in improving ITL for their disabled students, notwithstanding Government funding provided and recommended for that purpose. This research recommends establishing an Institute for Inclusive Teaching and Learning (IITL), to lead the sector in: defining ITL, encouraging inter-HE organisation collaboration to achieve its operationalisation through Whole Institution (WI) and whole-sector initiatives, formulating and promoting its objective transparent measurement, and integrating DSA within it

Optimisation des Systèmes Partiellement Observables dans les Réseaux Sans-fil (Théorie des jeux, Auto-adaptation et Apprentissage)

La dernière décennie a vu l'émergence d'Internet et l'apparition des applications multimédia qui requièrent de plus en plus de bande passante, ainsi que des utilisateurs qui exigent une meilleure qualité de service. Dans cette perspective, beaucoup de travaux ont été effectués pour améliorer l'utilisation du spectre sans fil.Le sujet de ma thèse de doctorat porte sur l'application de la théorie des jeux, la théorie des files d'attente et l'apprentissage dans les réseaux sans fil,en particulier dans des environnements partiellement observables. Nous considérons différentes couches du modèle OSI. En effet, nous étudions l'accès opportuniste au spectre sans fil à la couche MAC en utilisant la technologie des radios cognitifs (CR). Par la suite, nous nous concentrons sur le contrôle de congestion à la couche transport, et nous développons des mécanismes de contrôle de congestion pour le protocole TCP.Since delay-sensitive and bandwidth-intense multimedia applications have emerged in the Internet, the demand for network resources has seen a steady increase during the last decade. Specifically, wireless networks have become pervasive and highly populated.These motivations are behind the problems considered in this dissertation.The topic of my PhD is about the application of game theory, queueing theory and learning techniques in wireless networks under some QoS constraints, especially in partially observable environments.We consider different layers of the protocol stack. In fact, we study the Opportunistic Spectrum Access (OSA) at the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer through Cognitive Radio (CR) approaches.Thereafter, we focus on the congestion control at the transport layer, and we develop some congestion control mechanisms under the TCP protocol.The roadmap of the research is as follows. Firstly, we focus on the MAC layer, and we seek for optimal OSA strategies in CR networks. We consider that Secondary Users (SUs) take advantage of opportunities in licensed channels while ensuring a minimum level of QoS. In fact, SUs have the possibility to sense and access licensed channels, or to transmit their packets using a dedicated access (like 3G). Therefore, a SU has two conflicting goals: seeking for opportunities in licensed channels, but spending energy for sensing those channels, or transmitting over the dedicated channel without sensing, but with higher transmission delay. We model the slotted and the non-slotted systems using a queueing framework. Thereafter, we analyze the non-cooperative behavior of SUs, and we prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium (NE) strategy. Moreover, we measure the gap of performance between the centralized and the decentralized systems using the Price of Anarchy (PoA).Even if the OSA at the MAC layer was deeply investigated in the last decade, the performance of SUs, such as energy consumption or Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee, was somehow ignored. Therefore, we study the OSA taking into account energy consumption and delay. We consider, first, one SU that access opportunistically licensed channels, or transmit its packets through a dedicated channel. Due to the partial spectrum sensing, the state of the spectrum is partially observable. Therefore, we use the Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) framework to design an optimal OSA policy for SUs. Specifically, we derive some structural properties of the value function, and we prove that the optimal OSA policy has a threshold structure.Thereafter, we extend the model to the context of multiple SUs. We study the non-cooperative behavior of SUs and we prove the existence of a NE. Moreover, we highlight a paradox in this situation: more opportunities in the licensed spectrum may lead to worst performances for SUs. Thereafter, we focus on the study of spectrum management issues. In fact, we introduce a spectrum manager to the model, and we analyze the hierarchical game between the network manager and SUs.Finally, we focus on the transport layer and we study the congestion control for wireless networks under some QoS and Quality of Experience (QoE) constraints. Firstly, we propose a congestion control algorithm that takes into account applications' parameters and multimedia quality. In fact, we consider that network users maximize their expected multimedia quality by choosing the congestion control strategy. Since users ignore the congestion status at bottleneck links, we use a POMDP framework to determine the optimal congestion control strategy.Thereafter, we consider a subjective measure of the multimedia quality, and we propose a QoE-based congestion control algorithm. This algorithm bases on QoE feedbacks from receivers in order to adapt the congestion window size. Note that the proposed algorithms are designed based on some learning methods in order to face the complexity of solving POMDP problems.AVIGNON-Bib. numérique (840079901) / SudocSudocFranceF