Cognition-Based Networks: A New Perspective on Network Optimization Using Learning and Distributed Intelligence

IEEE Access Volume 3, 2015, Article number 7217798, Pages 1512-1530 Open Access Cognition-based networks: A new perspective on network optimization using learning and distributed intelligence (Article) Zorzi, M.a , Zanella, A.a, Testolin, A.b, De Filippo De Grazia, M.b, Zorzi, M.bc a Department of Information Engineering, University of Padua, Padua, Italy b Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy c IRCCS San Camillo Foundation, Venice-Lido, Italy View additional affiliations View references (107) Abstract In response to the new challenges in the design and operation of communication networks, and taking inspiration from how living beings deal with complexity and scalability, in this paper we introduce an innovative system concept called COgnition-BAsed NETworkS (COBANETS). The proposed approach develops around the systematic application of advanced machine learning techniques and, in particular, unsupervised deep learning and probabilistic generative models for system-wide learning, modeling, optimization, and data representation. Moreover, in COBANETS, we propose to combine this learning architecture with the emerging network virtualization paradigms, which make it possible to actuate automatic optimization and reconfiguration strategies at the system level, thus fully unleashing the potential of the learning approach. Compared with the past and current research efforts in this area, the technical approach outlined in this paper is deeply interdisciplinary and more comprehensive, calling for the synergic combination of expertise of computer scientists, communications and networking engineers, and cognitive scientists, with the ultimate aim of breaking new ground through a profound rethinking of how the modern understanding of cognition can be used in the management and optimization of telecommunication network

Will the humble inherit the Earth? Towards a realistic politics of habitation

The related notions of habitation and habitability offer a very promising way for framing the conversation about the issues around which environmental political theory has gravitated from its inception: sustainability, environmental justice, preservation. However, the connection between the two must probably be revised in order to produce an ideal of habitation that is useful in the current sociopolitical context. This paper seeks to clarify their mutual relations and explores the way for the politicization of habitation. Underlining the role of nonintentional actions in the past history of habitation, it will argue that, in order to politicize habitation, the latter must be made salient -so that citizens realize that the socionatural relation is not that 'natural'. Ernesto Laclau's notion of the political as an uncovering of contingencies may be useful, while the Lacanian notion of fantasy may be used to explain the gap between current (instrumental) modes of habitation and pervasive (Arcadian) ideals of it. As to how can the relation between habitation and habitability be effectively politicized, this paper will argue that it is the political, rather than politics, what offers a most promising path for re-imagining habitation in our complex and ambivalent societies. Ecological citizenship and newly created spaces for nature are sketched as strategies for politicizing habitation. Bioregionalism is recovered as a radical politics of habitation whose flaws must be avoided if habitation is to be reframed in a mostly urban, hypertechnological world. In this regard, the paper also develops a particular narrative for a reframed habitation, a 'clever adaptation' understood as a regulatory ideal towards which different actions and discourses can be directed.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec