Greediness control algorithm for multimedia streaming in wireless local area networks

This work investigates the interaction between the application and transport layers while streaming multimedia in a residential Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). Inconsistencies have been identified that can have a severe impact on the Quality of Experience (QoE) experienced by end users. This problem arises as a result of the streaming processes reliance on rate adaptation engines based on congestion avoidance mechanisms, that try to obtain as much bandwidth as possible from the limited network resources. These upper transport layer mechanisms have no knowledge of the media which they are carrying and as a result treat all traffic equally. This lack of knowledge of the media carried and the characteristics of the target devices results in fair bandwidth distribution at the transport layer but creates unfairness at the application layer. This unfairness mostly affects user perceived quality when streaming high quality multimedia. Essentially, bandwidth that is distributed fairly between competing video streams at the transport layer results in unfair application layer video quality distribution. Therefore, there is a need to allow application layer streaming solutions, tune the aggressiveness of transport layer congestion control mechanisms, in order to create application layer QoE fairness between competing media streams, by taking their device characteristics into account. This thesis proposes the Greediness Control Algorithm (GCA), an upper transport layer mechanism that eliminates quality inconsistencies caused by rate / congestion control mechanisms while streaming multimedia in wireless networks. GCA extends an existing solution (i.e. TCP Friendly Rate Control (TFRC)) by introducing two parameters that allow the streaming application to tune the aggressiveness of the rate estimation and as a result, introduce fair distribution of quality at the application layer. The thesis shows that this rate adaptation technique, combined with a scalable video format allows increased overall system QoE. Extensive simulation analysis demonstrate that this form of rate adaptation increases the overall user QoE achieved via a number of devices operating within the same home WLAN

Beyond Options

Scholars and policymakers now debate reforms that would prevent a bankruptcy filing from being a moment that forces valuation of the firm, crystallization of claims against it, and elimination of junior stakeholders’ interest in future appreciation in firm value. These reforms have many names, ranging from Relative Priority to Redemption Option Value. Much of the debate centers on the extent to which reform would protect the non-bankruptcy options of junior stakeholders, or harm the non-bankruptcy options of senior lenders. We argue that this focus on options misplaced. Protecting options is neither necessary nor sufficient for advancing the goal of a well-functioning bankruptcy system. What is needed is a regime that cashes out the rights of junior stakeholders with minimal judicial involvement. To illustrate, we propose an “automatic bankruptcy procedure” that gives senior creditors an option to restructure the firm’s debt or sell its assets at any time after a contractual default. Under this procedure, restructuring occurs in bankruptcy, but sales do not. Sales are either subject to warrants (which give junior stakeholders a claim on future appreciation) or are subject to judicial appraisal (which forces senior lenders to compensate junior stakeholders if the sale price was too low). Our proposal can be seen as an effort to design a formalized restructuring procedure that borrows from traditional state law governing corporate-control transactions. We show that this procedure minimizes core problems of current law – fire sales that harm junior stakeholders, delay that harms senior lenders, and the uncertainties generated by judicial valuation, which are exploited by all parties

The Organization of Dissonance in Adena-Hopewell Societies of Eastern North America

Social complexity increased dramatically during the Middle Woodland period (ca. 200 BC-AD 500) in Eastern North America. Adena-Hopewell societies during this period built massive burial mounds, constructed complex geometric earthen enclosures, and maintained extensive trade networks in exotic craft goods. These material signatures suggest that coalition and consensus were sustained through social bonds since clear evidence for top-down leadership does not exist in Adena-Hopewell archaeology. Here, a framework grounded in new understandings of heterarchy is used to explore how coalitions were formed, organised, maintained, and/or shifted as a means to coordinate labour and ritual among Middle Woodland Period groups. Through re- analysis of the Wright Mound in Kentucky, and its burial contents, new insights into heterarchical organisation are used to achieve a wider, diachronic understanding of how humans in the past reached, realised, and rearranged forms of consensus and coalition

The Organization of Dissonance in Adena-Hopewell Societies of Eastern North America

Social complexity increased dramatically during the Middle Woodland period (ca. 200 BC-AD 500) in Eastern North America. Adena-Hopewell societies during this period built massive burial mounds, constructed complex geometric earthen enclosures, and maintained extensive trade networks in exotic craft goods. These material signatures suggest that coalition and consensus were sustained through social bonds since clear evidence for top-down leadership does not exist in Adena-Hopewell archaeology. Here, a framework grounded in new understandings of heterarchy is used to explore how coalitions were formed, organised, maintained, and/or shifted as a means to coordinate labour and ritual among Middle Woodland Period groups. Through re- analysis of the Wright Mound in Kentucky, and its burial contents, new insights into heterarchical organisation are used to achieve a wider, diachronic understanding of how humans in the past reached, realised, and rearranged forms of consensus and coalition

Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on Aid Impacts Using a Pre-Analysis Plan

Although institutions are believed to be key determinants of economic performance, there is limited evidence on how they can be successfully reformed. Evaluating the effects of specific reforms is complicated by the lack of exogenous variation in the presence of institutions; the difficulty of empirically measuring institutional performance; and the temptation to “cherry pick” a few novel treatment effect estimates from amongst the large number of indicators required to capture the complex and multi-faceted subject. We evaluate one attempt to make local institutions more egalitarian by imposing minority participation requirements in Sierra Leone and test for longer term learning-by-doing effects. In so doing, we address these three pervasive challenges by: exploiting the random assignment of a participatory local governance intervention, developing innovative real-world outcomes measures, and using a pre-analysis plan to bind our hands against data mining. The specific program under study is a “community driven development” (CDD) project, which has become a popular strategy amongst donors to improve local institutions in developing countries. We find positive short-run effects on local public goods provision and economic outcomes, but no sustained impacts on collective action, decision-making processes, or the involvement of marginalized groups (like women) in local affairs, indicating that the intervention was ineffective at durably reshaping local institutions. We further show that in the absence of a pre-analysis plan, we could have instead generated two highly divergent, equally erroneous interpretations of the impacts—one positive, one negative—of external aid on institutions.

From Athens to Atlantis: Democratic Mythmaking in Classical Greece

This paper is concerned with political myth and the process of political mythmaking in Classical Athens (5th-4th centuries B.C.E.), and by extension, in other democracies as well. While there has been a number of political science works that have looked at how monopolistic political myths are formed in authoritarian or otherwise restricted nationalist regimes, few have considered how political myths are created and transmitted in democracies. This paper addresses this dearth in the literature by investigating the understudied phenomenon that it labels democratic mythmaking. In looking at Classical Athens, this paper illustrates that democratic mythmaking has been a part of democracy since its inception. Discussing Herodotus, The Old Oligarch, Thucydides, Isocrates, and Plato, this paper illustrates that their works: 1) refer to and describe other democratic myths; 2) contribute myths of their own; and 3) demonstrate that the process of political mythmaking in a democracy is pluralistic, contested, and above all democratic.Master of Art

The Paradox of the Christian Poet: George Herbert's Problematics

The thesis examines the paradoxes in Herbert's poetry and attributes the many contradictions and vacillations within The Temple to Herbert's own "spiritual conflicts" as a Christian poet. The thesis explores the poems as interconnected expressions of Herbert's dual nature as Christian-Poet. The thesis discusses over sixty of Herbert's poems, concentrating on close readings and intratextual connections. Chapter One reviews critical approaches to Herbert's poetry and outlines the study. Chapter Two examines Herbert's life and the expression of his struggles in poetry. Chapter Three discusses Herbert's poetry itself and comments on the deceptively simplistic style. Chapter Four explores the conflict between the worlds of the Christian and the poet. Chapter Five concludes that, more than merely an artistic exercise or catechistic tool, Herbert's poetry accurately records the duality of the poet's spiritual journey

A Catalog of Extinctions

The preface describes the construction of a book-length, interwoven sequence of poems. This type of sequence differs from other types of poetry collections in its use of an overarching narrative, repeated images, and recurring characters. Three interwoven sequences are used as examples of how to construct such a sequence

Being at the edge of Place

This paper by Professor Edward Casey, Stony Brook University, is based on a lecture he gave at the University of Southern Denmark on September 9, 2010. As such it works as a draft of Professor Casey’s current research and is not a complete and finished research article