Survey of Spectrum Sharing for Inter-Technology Coexistence

Increasing capacity demands in emerging wireless technologies are expected to be met by network densification and spectrum bands open to multiple technologies. These will, in turn, increase the level of interference and also result in more complex inter-technology interactions, which will need to be managed through spectrum sharing mechanisms. Consequently, novel spectrum sharing mechanisms should be designed to allow spectrum access for multiple technologies, while efficiently utilizing the spectrum resources overall. Importantly, it is not trivial to design such efficient mechanisms, not only due to technical aspects, but also due to regulatory and business model constraints. In this survey we address spectrum sharing mechanisms for wireless inter-technology coexistence by means of a technology circle that incorporates in a unified, system-level view the technical and non-technical aspects. We thus systematically explore the spectrum sharing design space consisting of parameters at different layers. Using this framework, we present a literature review on inter-technology coexistence with a focus on wireless technologies with equal spectrum access rights, i.e. (i) primary/primary, (ii) secondary/secondary, and (iii) technologies operating in a spectrum commons. Moreover, we reflect on our literature review to identify possible spectrum sharing design solutions and performance evaluation approaches useful for future coexistence cases. Finally, we discuss spectrum sharing design challenges and suggest future research directions

Dynamic simulation model of trans-critical carbon dioxide heat pump application for boosting low temperature distribution networks in dwellings

This research investigates the role of new hybrid energy system applications for developing a new plant refurbishment strategy to deploy small scale smart energy systems. This work deals with a dynamic simulation of trans-critical carbon dioxide heat pump application for boosting low temperature distribution networks to share heat for dwellings. Heat pumps provide high temperature heat to use the traditional emission systems. The new plant layout consists of an air source heat pump, four trans-critical carbon dioxide heat pumps (CO2-HPs), photovoltaic arrays, and a combined heat and power (CHP) for both domestic hot water production and electricity to partially drive the heat pumps. Furthermore, electric storage devices adoption has been evaluated. That layout has been compared to the traditional one based on separated generation systems using several energy performance indicators. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis on the primary energy saving, primary fossil energy consumptions, renewable energy fraction and renewable heat, with changes in building power to heat ratios, has been carried out. Obtained results highlighted that using the hybrid system with storage device it is possible to get a saving of 50% approximately. Consequently, CO2-HPs and hybrid systems adoption could be a viable option to achieve Near Zero Energy Building (NZEB) qualification

Performance analysis of downlink shared channels in a UMTS network

In light of the expected growth in wireless data communications and the commonly anticipated up/downlink asymmetry, we present a performance analysis of downlink data transfer over \textsc{d}ownlink \textsc{s}hared \textsc{ch}annels (\textsc{dsch}s), arguably the most efficient \textsc{umts} transport channel for medium-to-large data transfers. It is our objective to provide qualitative insight in the different aspects that influence the data \textsc{q}uality \textsc{o}f \textsc{s}ervice (\textsc{qos}). As a most principal factor, the data traffic load affects the data \textsc{qos} in two distinct manners: {\em (i)} a heavier data traffic load implies a greater competition for \textsc{dsch} resources and thus longer transfer delays; and {\em (ii)} since each data call served on a \textsc{dsch} must maintain an \textsc{a}ssociated \textsc{d}edicated \textsc{ch}annel (\textsc{a}-\textsc{dch}) for signalling purposes, a heavier data traffic load implies a higher interference level, a higher frame error rate and thus a lower effective aggregate \textsc{dsch} throughput: {\em the greater the demand for service, the smaller the aggregate service capacity.} The latter effect is further amplified in a multicellular scenario, where a \textsc{dsch} experiences additional interference from the \textsc{dsch}s and \textsc{a}-\textsc{dch}s in surrounding cells, causing a further degradation of its effective throughput. Following an insightful two-stage performance evaluation approach, which segregates the interference aspects from the traffic dynamics, a set of numerical experiments is executed in order to demonstrate these effects and obtain qualitative insight in the impact of various system aspects on the data \textsc{qos}

ATP: a Datacenter Approximate Transmission Protocol

Many datacenter applications such as machine learning and streaming systems do not need the complete set of data to perform their computation. Current approximate applications in datacenters run on a reliable network layer like TCP. To improve performance, they either let sender select a subset of data and transmit them to the receiver or transmit all the data and let receiver drop some of them. These approaches are network oblivious and unnecessarily transmit more data, affecting both application runtime and network bandwidth usage. On the other hand, running approximate application on a lossy network with UDP cannot guarantee the accuracy of application computation. We propose to run approximate applications on a lossy network and to allow packet loss in a controlled manner. Specifically, we designed a new network protocol called Approximate Transmission Protocol, or ATP, for datacenter approximate applications. ATP opportunistically exploits available network bandwidth as much as possible, while performing a loss-based rate control algorithm to avoid bandwidth waste and re-transmission. It also ensures bandwidth fair sharing across flows and improves accurate applications' performance by leaving more switch buffer space to accurate flows. We evaluated ATP with both simulation and real implementation using two macro-benchmarks and two real applications, Apache Kafka and Flink. Our evaluation results show that ATP reduces application runtime by 13.9% to 74.6% compared to a TCP-based solution that drops packets at sender, and it improves accuracy by up to 94.0% compared to UDP

Distributed simulation and the grid: Position statements

The Grid provides a new and unrivaled technology for large scale distributed simulation as it enables collaboration and the use of distributed computing resources. This panel paper presents the views of four researchers in the area of Distributed Simulation and the Grid. Together we try to identify the main research issues involved in applying Grid technology to distributed simulation and the key future challenges that need to be solved to achieve this goal. Such challenges include not only technical challenges, but also political ones such as management methodology for the Grid and the development of standards. The benefits of the Grid to end-user simulation modelers also are discussed