56,817 research outputs found
Adaptive Network Coding for Scheduling Real-time Traffic with Hard Deadlines
We study adaptive network coding (NC) for scheduling real-time traffic over a
single-hop wireless network. To meet the hard deadlines of real-time traffic,
it is critical to strike a balance between maximizing the throughput and
minimizing the risk that the entire block of coded packets may not be decodable
by the deadline. Thus motivated, we explore adaptive NC, where the block size
is adapted based on the remaining time to the deadline, by casting this
sequential block size adaptation problem as a finite-horizon Markov decision
process. One interesting finding is that the optimal block size and its
corresponding action space monotonically decrease as the deadline approaches,
and the optimal block size is bounded by the "greedy" block size. These unique
structures make it possible to narrow down the search space of dynamic
programming, building on which we develop a monotonicity-based backward
induction algorithm (MBIA) that can solve for the optimal block size in
polynomial time. Since channel erasure probabilities would be time-varying in a
mobile network, we further develop a joint real-time scheduling and channel
learning scheme with adaptive NC that can adapt to channel dynamics. We also
generalize the analysis to multiple flows with hard deadlines and long-term
delivery ratio constraints, devise a low-complexity online scheduling algorithm
integrated with the MBIA, and then establish its asymptotical
throughput-optimality. In addition to analysis and simulation results, we
perform high fidelity wireless emulation tests with real radio transmissions to
demonstrate the feasibility of the MBIA in finding the optimal block size in
real time.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure
Network Flow Algorithms for Structured Sparsity
We consider a class of learning problems that involve a structured
sparsity-inducing norm defined as the sum of -norms over groups of
variables. Whereas a lot of effort has been put in developing fast optimization
methods when the groups are disjoint or embedded in a specific hierarchical
structure, we address here the case of general overlapping groups. To this end,
we show that the corresponding optimization problem is related to network flow
optimization. More precisely, the proximal problem associated with the norm we
consider is dual to a quadratic min-cost flow problem. We propose an efficient
procedure which computes its solution exactly in polynomial time. Our algorithm
scales up to millions of variables, and opens up a whole new range of
applications for structured sparse models. We present several experiments on
image and video data, demonstrating the applicability and scalability of our
approach for various problems.Comment: accepted for publication in Adv. Neural Information Processing
Systems, 201
EC-CENTRIC: An Energy- and Context-Centric Perspective on IoT Systems and Protocol Design
The radio transceiver of an IoT device is often where most of the energy is consumed. For this reason, most research so far has focused on low power circuit and energy efficient physical layer designs, with the goal of reducing the average energy per information bit required for communication. While these efforts are valuable per se, their actual effectiveness can be partially neutralized by ill-designed network, processing and resource management solutions, which can become a primary factor of performance degradation, in terms of throughput, responsiveness and energy efficiency. The objective of this paper is to describe an energy-centric and context-aware optimization framework that accounts for the energy impact of the fundamental functionalities of an IoT system and that proceeds along three main technical thrusts: 1) balancing signal-dependent processing techniques (compression and feature extraction) and communication tasks; 2) jointly designing channel access and routing protocols to maximize the network lifetime; 3) providing self-adaptability to different operating conditions through the adoption of suitable learning architectures and of flexible/reconfigurable algorithms and protocols. After discussing this framework, we present some preliminary results that validate the effectiveness of our proposed line of action, and show how the use of adaptive signal processing and channel access techniques allows an IoT network to dynamically tune lifetime for signal distortion, according to the requirements dictated by the application
Together we stand, Together we fall, Together we win: Dynamic Team Formation in Massive Open Online Courses
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer a new scalable paradigm for
e-learning by providing students with global exposure and opportunities for
connecting and interacting with millions of people all around the world. Very
often, students work as teams to effectively accomplish course related tasks.
However, due to lack of face to face interaction, it becomes difficult for MOOC
students to collaborate. Additionally, the instructor also faces challenges in
manually organizing students into teams because students flock to these MOOCs
in huge numbers. Thus, the proposed research is aimed at developing a robust
methodology for dynamic team formation in MOOCs, the theoretical framework for
which is grounded at the confluence of organizational team theory, social
network analysis and machine learning. A prerequisite for such an undertaking
is that we understand the fact that, each and every informal tie established
among students offers the opportunities to influence and be influenced.
Therefore, we aim to extract value from the inherent connectedness of students
in the MOOC. These connections carry with them radical implications for the way
students understand each other in the networked learning community. Our
approach will enable course instructors to automatically group students in
teams that have fairly balanced social connections with their peers, well
defined in terms of appropriately selected qualitative and quantitative network
metrics.Comment: In Proceedings of 5th IEEE International Conference on Application of
Digital Information & Web Technologies (ICADIWT), India, February 2014 (6
pages, 3 figures
- …