Coalition Formation Game for Cooperative Content Delivery in Network Coding Assisted D2D Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have shown a huge potential in cellular offloading and become a potential technology in 5G and beyond. In D2D networks, the requested contents by user devices (UDs) can be delivered via D2D links, thus offloading the content providers (CPs). In this work, we address the problem of minimizing the delay of delivering content in a decentralized and partially D2D connected network using network coding (NC) and cooperation among the UDs. The proposed optimization framework considers UDs’ acquired and missing contents, their limited coverage zones, NC, and content’s erasure probability. As such, the completion time for delivering all missing contents to all UDs is minimized. The problem is modeled as a coalition game with cooperative-players wherein the payoff function is derived so that increasing individual payoff results in the desired cooperative behavior. Given the intractability of the formulation, the coalition game is relaxed to a coalition formation game (CFG). A distributed coalition formation algorithm relying on merge-and-split rules is developed for solving the relaxed problem at each transmission. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated through computer simulation against existing schemes

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences

Robopoetics: the robot-lyric voice

This thesis develops a ‘robopoetics’ for reading and writing lyric poetry. The thesis is both an exploration of the lyric voice/voicing and a cultural study of the robot as icon. The central premises of this robopoetics are these: robots and poems share lyric substance; lyric voicing renders the voicer indeterminate and lyric poems effectively make robots of poets; we can hear lyric voice in the way we hear robot voices; these voices are uncanny. The thesis first establishes the im/material substance of the robot, its status of both metaphor and ontology as anthropomorphic man-machine and person simulator. Lyric poems share this im/material substance and anthropomorphic function in that they too confirm and construct the human subject. The thesis shows that the ambiguous in/humanness of robots forms the basis of their uncanny vocal effects; it identifies a group of uncanny voice-forms through analysis of robots in popular culture and argues that, because of their material identity and anthropomorphic function, these forms can be heard in lyric poems too. The thesis expounds a view of lyric as ritual voice event and of the lyric subject as a principle of unity whose voicing renders the writing subject indeterminate, so that poems in effect automate the poet. Lyric poetry can be understood as simulation and lyric voicing as ventriloquism, so that the writing subject can neither fully own nor disown the lyric voice. These ideas are demonstrated via analysis of the work of four poets, to which the voice-forms audible in robot voice are applied to explore sounding/silence and absence/presence. The purpose of this robopoetics is not to discredit the lyric subject nor to dehumanise the writing subject; it is to suggest a modern way of approaching the lyric subject, and to seriously consider the humanity of the writing subject such as it manifests in lyric poetry