Achieving Max-Min Throughput in LoRa Networks

With growing popularity, LoRa networks are pivotally enabling Long Range connectivity to low-cost and power-constrained user equipments (UEs). Due to its wide coverage area, a critical issue is to effectively allocate wireless resources to support potentially massive UEs in the cell while resolving the prominent near-far fairness problem for cell-edge UEs, which is challenging to address due to the lack of tractable analytical model for the LoRa network and its practical requirement for low-complexity and low-overhead design. To achieve massive connectivity with fairness, we investigate the problem of maximizing the minimum throughput of all UEs in the LoRa network, by jointly designing high-level policies of spreading factor (SF) allocation, power control, and duty cycle adjustment based only on average channel statistics and spatial UE distribution. By leveraging on the Poisson rain model along with tailored modifications to our considered LoRa network, we are able to account for channel fading, aggregate interference and accurate packet overlapping, and still obtain a tractable and yet accurate closed-form formula for the packet success probability and hence throughput. We further propose an iterative balancing (IB) method to allocate the SFs in the cell such that the overall max-min throughput can be achieved within the considered time period and cell area. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme with optimized design greatly alleviates the near-far fairness issue, and significantly improves the cell-edge throughput.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, published in Proc. International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), 2020. This paper proposes stochastic-geometry based analytical framework for a single-cell LoRa network, with joint optimization to achieve max-min throughput for the users. Extended journal version for large-scale multi-cell LoRa network: arXiv:2008.0743

Mode selection for energy efficient D2D communications in dynamic TDD systems

Network-assisted Device-to-Device (D2D) communicationis a promising technology for improving the performanceof proximity-based services. This paper demonstrates how D2Dcommunication can be used to improve the energy-efficiencyof cellular networks, leading to a greener system operationand a prolonged battery life of the mobile devices. Assuminga flexible TDD system, we develop optimal mode selectionpolicies for minimizing the energy cost (either from the systemor from the device perspective) while guaranteeing a certainrate requirement. The jointly optimal transmit power and timeallocation, as well as the optimal mode selection, is found bysolving a small convex optimization problem. Special attentionis given to the geometrical interpretation of the obtained results.We show that when network energy is the primary concern, D2Dmode is preferable in a large portion of the cell. When the deviceenergy consumption is most important, on the other hand, thearea where D2D mode is preferable shrinks and becomes close tocircular. Finally, we investigate how network parameters affectthe range where direct communication is preferred.QC 20150911</p

Millimeter Wave Full-Duplex Networks: MAC Design and Throughput Optimization

Full-duplex (FD) technique can remarkably boost the network capacity in the millimeter wave (mmWave) bands by enabling simultaneous transmission and reception. However, due to directional transmission and large bandwidth, the throughput and fairness performance of a mmWave FD network are affected by deafness and directional hidden-node (HN) problems and severe residual self-interference (RSI). To address these challenges, this paper proposes a directional FD medium access control protocol, named DFDMAC to support typical directional FD transmission modes by exploiting FD to transmit control frames to reduce signaling overhead. Furthermore, a novel busy-tone mechanism is designed to avoid deafness and directional HN problems and improve the fairness of channel access. To reduce the impact of RSI on link throughput, we formulate a throughput maximization problem for different FD transmission modes and propose a power control algorithm to obtain the optimal transmit power. Simulation results show that the proposed DFDMAC can improve the network throughput and fairness by over 60% and 32%, respectively, compared with the existing MAC protocol in IEEE 802.11ay. Moreover, the proposed power control algorithm can effectively enhance the network throughput

Infant 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine immunization alters young adulthood CD4+T cell subsets in allergic airway disease mouse model

Abstract7-Valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) immunization in adulthood can inhibit allergic asthma in mouse model. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of infant PCV7 immunization on young adulthood CD4+T cell subsets in a murine allergic airway disease (AAD) model. Our study indicated that infant PCV7 immunization can inhibit young adulthood airway inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) by inducing the production of Foxp3+Treg, Th1 cells and their cytokines IL-10 and IFN-γ, inhibiting the production of Th2, Th17 cells and their cytokines IL-13 and IL-17A in BALB/c mice model. These results suggested that infant PCV7 immunization may serve as an effective measure to prevent young adulthood mice AAD