The Write Track

The Atlantic Monthly ranks UNLV’s graduate-level creative writing programs among best in the nation

The temperature dependence of inelastic light scattering from small particles for use in combustion diagnostic instrumentation

A computer calculation of the expected angular distribution of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) from micrometer size polystyrene spheres based on a Mie-type model, and a pilot experiment to test the feasibility of measuring CARS angular distributions from micrometer size polystyrene spheres by simply suspending them in water are discussed. The computer calculations predict a very interesting structure in the angular distributions that depends strongly on the size and relative refractive index of the spheres

Network Coded TCP (CTCP) Performance over Satellite Networks

We show preliminary results for the performance of Network Coded TCP (CTCP) over large latency networks. While CTCP performs very well in networks with relatively short RTT, the slow-start mechanism currently employed does not adequately fill the available bandwidth when the RTT is large. Regardless, we show that CTCP still outperforms current TCP variants (i.e., Cubic TCP and Hybla TCP) for high packet loss rates (e.g., >2.5%). We then explore the possibility of a modified congestion control mechanism based off of H-TCP that opens the congestion window quickly to overcome the challenges of large latency networks. Preliminary results are provided that show the combination of network coding with an appropriate congestion control algorithm can provide gains on the order of 20 times that of existing TCP variants. Finally, we provide a discussion of the future work needed to increase CTCP's performance in these networks.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Accepted at SPACOMM 201

MAC Centered Cooperation - Synergistic Design of Network Coding, Multi-Packet Reception, and Improved Fairness to Increase Network Throughput

We design a cross-layer approach to aid in develop- ing a cooperative solution using multi-packet reception (MPR), network coding (NC), and medium access (MAC). We construct a model for the behavior of the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol and apply it to key small canonical topology components and their larger counterparts. The results obtained from this model match the available experimental results with fidelity. Using this model, we show that fairness allocation by the IEEE 802.11 MAC can significantly impede performance; hence, we devise a new MAC that not only substantially improves throughput, but provides fairness to flows of information rather than to nodes. We show that cooperation between NC, MPR, and our new MAC achieves super-additive gains of up to 6.3 times that of routing with the standard IEEE 802.11 MAC. Furthermore, we extend the model to analyze our MAC's asymptotic and throughput behaviors as the number of nodes increases or the MPR capability is limited to only a single node. Finally, we show that although network performance is reduced under substantial asymmetry or limited implementation of MPR to a central node, there are some important practical cases, even under these conditions, where MPR, NC, and their combination provide significant gains