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DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city
DIY networking is a technology with special characteristics compared to the public Internet, which holds a unique potential for empowering citizens to shape their hybrid urban space toward conviviality and collective awareness. It can also play the role of a “boundary object” for facilitating interdisciplinary interactions and participatory processes between different actors: researchers, engineers, practitioners, artists, designers, local authorities, and activists. This position paper presents a social learning framework, the DIY networking paradigm, that we aim to put in the centre of the hybrid space design process. We first introduce our individual views on the role of design as discussed in the fields of engineering, urban planning, urban interaction design, design research, and community informatics. We then introduce a simple methodology for combining these diverse perspectives into a meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration, through a series of related events with different structure and framing. We conclude with a short summary of a selection of these events, which serves also as an introduction to the CONTACT workshop on facilitating information sharing between strangers, in the context of the Hybrid City III conference
Performance Analysis of SVD-assisted Downlink Multiuser MIMO Systems
Multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink (DL) transmission schemes experience both multiuser interference as well as inter-antenna interference. Instead of treating all the users jointly as in zero-forcing (ZF) multiuser transmission techniques, the investigated singular value decomposition (SVD) assisted DL multiuser MIMO system takes the individual user’s channel characteristics into account. This translates to a choice of modulation constellation and transmitter power and, in our proposed system, to a choice of number of activated user-specific MIMO layers. The performed joint optimization of the number of activated MIMO layers and the number of bits per symbol along with the appropriate allocation of the transmit power shows that not necessarily all user-specific MIMO layers has to be activated in both frequency-selective and non-frequency selective MIMO channels in order to minimize the overall BER under the constraint of a given fixed data throughput
Intersymbol and Intercarrier Interference in OFDM Transmissions through Highly Dispersive Channels
This work quantifies, for the first time, intersymbol and intercarrier
interferences induced by very dispersive channels in OFDM systems. The
resulting achievable data rate for \wam{suboptimal} OFDM transmissions is
derived based on the computation of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio for
arbitrary length finite duration channel impulse responses. Simulation results
point to significant differences between data rates obtained via conventional
formulations, for which interferences are supposed to be limited to two or
three blocks, versus the data rates considering the actual channel dispersion
Symbol Error Rates of Maximum-Likelihood Detector: Convex/Concave Behavior and Applications
Convexity/concavity properties of symbol error rates (SER) of the maximum
likelihood detector operating in the AWGN channel (non-fading and fading) are
studied. Generic conditions are identified under which the SER is a
convex/concave function of the SNR. Universal bounds for the SER 1st and 2nd
derivatives are obtained, which hold for arbitrary constellations and are tight
for some of them. Applications of the results are discussed, which include
optimum power allocation in spatial multiplexing systems, optimum power/time
sharing to decrease or increase (jamming problem) error rate, and implication
for fading channels.Comment: To appear in 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory
(ISIT 2007), Nice, June 200
Network correlated data gathering with explicit communication: NP-completeness and algorithms
We consider the problem of correlated data gathering by a network with a sink node and a tree-based communication structure, where the goal is to minimize the total transmission cost of transporting the information collected by the nodes, to the sink node. For source coding of correlated data, we consider a joint entropy-based coding model with explicit communication where coding is simple and the transmission structure optimization is difficult. We first formulate the optimization problem definition in the general case and then we study further a network setting where the entropy conditioning at nodes does not depend on the amount of side information, but only on its availability. We prove that even in this simple case, the optimization problem is NP-hard. We propose some efficient, scalable, and distributed heuristic approximation algorithms for solving this problem and show by numerical simulations that the total transmission cost can be significantly improved over direct transmission or the shortest path tree. We also present an approximation algorithm that provides a tree transmission structure with total cost within a constant factor from the optimal
Innovation in the Wireless Ecosystem: A Customer-Centric Framework
The Federal Communications Commission’s Notice of Inquiry in GN 09-157 Fostering Innovation and Investment in the Wireless Communications Market is a significant event at an opportune moment. Wireless communications has already radically changed the way not only Americans but people the world over communicate with each other and access and share information, and there appears no end in sight to this fundamental shift in communication markets. Although the wireless communications phenomenon is global, the US has played and will continue to play a major role in the shaping of this market. At the start of a new US Administration and important changes in the FCC, it is most appropriate that this proceeding be launched.
Compute-and-Forward: Harnessing Interference through Structured Codes
Interference is usually viewed as an obstacle to communication in wireless
networks. This paper proposes a new strategy, compute-and-forward, that
exploits interference to obtain significantly higher rates between users in a
network. The key idea is that relays should decode linear functions of
transmitted messages according to their observed channel coefficients rather
than ignoring the interference as noise. After decoding these linear equations,
the relays simply send them towards the destinations, which given enough
equations, can recover their desired messages. The underlying codes are based
on nested lattices whose algebraic structure ensures that integer combinations
of codewords can be decoded reliably. Encoders map messages from a finite field
to a lattice and decoders recover equations of lattice points which are then
mapped back to equations over the finite field. This scheme is applicable even
if the transmitters lack channel state information.Comment: IEEE Trans. Info Theory, to appear. 23 pages, 13 figure
Key Factors for Effective Organisation of e-Assessment
The benefits of e-assessment are widely documented (Bull and McKenna 2004). However, instances of good practice have not been systematically reported. Recognising and acknowledging this gap in the research, the JISC Organisational Committee has funded a number of projects on e-assessment practice: 'E-Assessment Glossary?, 'The Roadmap to E-Assessment? together with a set of case studies of innovative and effective practice.
This paper is based on the findings of the JISC Case Study Project 'The innovative and effective use of E-Assessment'. Members of the project team conducted over 90 interviews with teaching staff, senior management, developers and students to showcase all aspects of e-assessment. The project offered a unique opportunity to observe different organisational structures and gain inside-information about the effectiveness of a number of different applications. The 17 case studies and their follow-up surveys have been studied to identify the facilitating factors for the introduction of e-assessment and the organisational structures supporting e-assessment have also been investigated. The focus of this analysis was to study the different organisational structures and to identify patterns herein.
We suggest that the key characteristics for the typology are the position of the e-assessment within the organisational structure and the support from the senior management. Three types of organisational structures are identified by the study, which support innovative practice. These are the Central Team, the Faculty based Team and the Departmental Champion.
The Central Team offers e-assessment support and, in some cases, production services to all academics on a university-wide basis whilst the Faculty Based Team provides a more limited discipline-related service. The Departmental Champion usually implements e-assessment within his/her specific discipline and may be an early adopter or have a special interest in this area
Teaching transdisciplinary competencies for sustainability transformation by co-producing social learning videos
Film has great potential to initiate social learning processes. Therefore, working with film is suitable as a teaching format that enables co-production of knowledge and transformative learning. Through participatory filmmaking, students can acquire transdisciplinary competencies, which are necessary for sustainability transformations. We discuss how transdisciplinary competences can be acquired by building on transformative teaching by co-producing social learning videos
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