Optimal Content Downloading in Vehicular Networks

We consider a system where users aboard communication-enabled vehicles are interested in downloading different contents from Internet-based servers. This scenario captures many of the infotainment services that vehicular communication is envisioned to enable, including news reporting, navigation maps and software updating, or multimedia file downloading. In this paper, we outline the performance limits of such a vehicular content downloading system by modelling the downloading process as an optimization problem, and maximizing the overall system throughput. Our approach allows us to investigate the impact of different factors, such as the roadside infrastructure deployment, the vehicle-to-vehicle relaying, and the penetration rate of the communication technology, even in presence of large instances of the problem. Results highlight the existence of two operational regimes at different penetration rates and the importance of an efficient, yet 2-hop constrained, vehicle-to-vehicle relaying

Persistent Localized Broadcasting in VANETs

We present a communication protocol, called LINGER, for persistent dissemination of delay-tolerant information to vehicular users, within a geographical area of interest. The goal of LINGER is to dispatch and confine information in localized areas of a mobile network with minimal protocol overhead and without requiring knowledge of the vehicles' routes or destinations. LINGER does not require roadside infrastructure support: it selects mobile nodes in a distributed, cooperative way and lets them act as "information bearers", providing uninterrupted information availability within a desired region. We analyze the performance of our dissemination mechanism through extensive simulations, in complex vehicular scenarios with realistic node mobility. The results demonstrate that LINGER represents a viable, appealing alternative to infrastructure-based solutions, as it can successfully drive the information toward a region of interest from a far away source and keep it local with negligible overhead. We show the effectiveness of such an approach in the support of localized broadcasting, in terms of both percentage of informed vehicles and information delivery delay, and we compare its performance to that of a dedicated, state-of-the-art protoco

Calorimeter R&D for the SuperNEMO Double Beta Decay Experiment

SuperNEMO is a next-generation double beta decay experiment based on the successful tracking plus calorimetry design approach of the NEMO3 experiment currently running in the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM). SuperNEMO can study a range of isotopes, the baseline isotopes are 82Se and possibly 150Nd. The total isotope mass will be 100-200 kg. A sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta decay half-life greater than 10e26 years can be reached which gives access to Majorana neutrino masses of 50-100 meV. One of the main challenges of the SuperNEMO R&D is the development of the calorimeter with an unprecedented energy resolution of 4% FWHM at 3 MeV (Qbb value of 82Se).Comment: Presented at 13th International Conference on Calorimetry in High Energy Physics (CALOR08), Pavia, Italy, 26-30 May 200

Content Discovery in Mobile Networks Using thePublish and Subscribe Paradigm

Articolo presentato alla riunione annuale dell'Associazione Gruppo Telecomunicazioni e Tecnologie dell'Informazione (GTTI) 200

Corrections to scaling in multicomponent polymer solutions

We calculate the correction-to-scaling exponent $\omega_T$ that characterizes the approach to the scaling limit in multicomponent polymer solutions. A direct Monte Carlo determination of $\omega_T$ in a system of interacting self-avoiding walks gives $\omega_T = 0.415(20)$. A field-theory analysis based on five- and six-loop perturbative series leads to $\omega_T = 0.41(4)$. We also verify the renormalization-group predictions for the scaling behavior close to the ideal-mixing point.Comment: 21 page

The critical exponents of the superfluid transition in He4

We improve the theoretical estimates of the critical exponents for the three-dimensional XY universality class, which apply to the superfluid transition in He4 along the lambda-line of its phase diagram. We obtain the estimates alpha=-0.0151(3), nu=0.6717(1), eta=0.0381(2), gamma=1.3178(2), beta=0.3486(1), and delta=4.780(1). Our results are obtained by finite-size scaling analyses of high-statistics Monte Carlo simulations up to lattice size L=128 and resummations of 22nd-order high-temperature expansions of two improved models with suppressed leading scaling corrections. We note that our result for the specific-heat exponent alpha disagrees with the most recent experimental estimate alpha=-0.0127(3) at the superfluid transition of He4 in microgravity environment.Comment: 45 pages, 16 fig

Average energy dissipated by mega-electron-volt hydrogen and helium ions per electron-hole pair generation in 4H-SiC

The pulse height response for He and H ions with energies between 1 and 6 MeV incident upon n-type 4H-SiC epitaxial Schottky diodes has been investigated. The average amount of energy, ε, given up by the incident radiation to form electron-hole pair in this material was obtained by comparison with the average energy loss per pair in silicon detectors and it was found to be (7.78±0.05)eV at room temperature. This value is smaller than that foreseen by Klein's semiempirical linear relationship between ε and the semiconductor band gap