A Survey and Comparison of Device-to-Device Architecture Using LTE Unlicensed Band

© 2017 IEEE. Due to the rapid increase in data traffic, one of the solutions provided by mobile operators is to operate Long Term Evolution (LTE) in the unlicensed 5GHz band, as the licensed spectrum is becoming scarce. Mobile operators can expand their network capacity by operating LTE in the unlicensed band at lower cost when compared with using other licensed bands. Device to Device (D2D) communication, proven to be another effective way to enhance the capacity of a network, enables direct data exchange of localized traffic of users in proximity. Applying D2D communication to LTE unlicensed 5GHz band will further improve the network performance and user experience. In this article, we will discuss the new type of solutions that have been proposed for LTE operating in an unlicensed 5GHz band that includes; LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U), LTE-License Assisted Access (LTE-LAA), LTE WiFi Link Aggregation (LWA), and MuLTEfire. We will discuss the important features along with their advantages and disadvantages and compare these technologies as well. We simulate LTE-LAA, LWA and MuLTEfire technologies in the presence of Wi-Fi hotspot and compare their results. Furthermore, we apply D2D communication to these technologies and from the results we conclude that MuLTEfire can increase the throughput drastically but network saturates quickly. Whereas, applying D2D communication with LWA is beneficial for a scalable network as it will not only increase the network throughput but will increase the network capacity as well

Psychiatric Comorbidity in Transformed Migraine: Presentation, Treatment, Impact and Outcome

Transformed migraine is one of the subtypes of chronic daily headache (CDH), and is similar to chronic migraine, described in the new International Headache Society (IHS) classification 2004. The term CDH refers to the Headache disorders experienced 15 or more days a month and includes headaches associated with medication overuse. CDH can be divided into primary and secondary varieties. Primary CDH is not related to a structural or systemic illness. It includes diseases such as Transformed migraine (TM). Chronic tension-type headache (CTTH), new daily persistent headache (NDPH), and hemicrania continua (HC). Secondary CDH has an identifiable underlying cause, including post-traumatic headache, cervical spine disorders, vascular disorders, nonvascular intracranial disorders and headaches associated with temporomandibular joint disorders, sinus infections, chronic meningitis, low and high intracranial pressure. In this study we have adopted the 1996 definition of TM proposed by Silberstein and Lipton in preference to the new discredited 2004 IHS criteria for chronic migraine. The association between migraine and psychiatric disorders has long been established. Several clinic-based and population-based studies have discussed the relationship. However psychiatric comorbidity in transformed migraine has seldom been discussed, and the effect on overall outcome has not been examined . Population based studies have shown that 4% to 5% of the general population has primary CDH. Transformed migraine is the major cause of CDH and is associated with poor quality of life and greater medical and social expenses compared to episodic migraine. CDH is most commonly transformed Migraine and is accompanied by high anxiety levels in most patients and with hysterical traits in some. These patients frequently have a coexisting depressive disorder. The purpose of this study is to characterize psychiatric disorders accompanying TM in a tertiary headache center and to examine their impact on outcome

Orbital effects of a monochromatic plane gravitational wave with ultra-low frequency incident on a gravitationally bound two-body system

We analytically compute the long-term orbital variations of a test particle orbiting a central body acted upon by an incident monochromatic plane gravitational wave. We assume that the characteristic size of the perturbed two-body system is much smaller than the wavelength of the wave. Moreover, we also suppose that the wave's frequency is much smaller than the particle's orbital one. We make neither a priori assumptions about the direction of the wavevector nor on the orbital geometry of the planet. We find that, while the semi-major axis is left unaffected, the eccentricity, the inclination, the longitude of the ascending node, the longitude of pericenter and the mean anomaly undergo non-vanishing long-term changes. They are not secular trends because of the slow modulation introduced by the tidal matrix coefficients and by the orbital elements themselves. They could be useful to indepenedently constrain the ultra-low frequency waves which may have been indirectly detected in the BICEP2 experiment. Our calculation holds, in general, for any gravitationally bound two-body system whose characteristic frequency is much larger than the frequency of the external wave. It is also valid for a generic perturbation of tidal type with constant coefficients over timescales of the order of the orbital period of the perturbed particle.Comment: LaTex2e, 24 pages, no figures, no tables. Changes suggested by the referees include

Medium- and short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase gene and protein families: The MDR superfamily

The MDR superfamily with ~350-residue subunits contains the classical liver alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), quinone reductase, leukotriene B4 dehydrogenase and many more forms. ADH is a dimeric zinc metalloprotein and occurs as five different classes in humans, resulting from gene duplications during vertebrate evolution, the first one traced to ~500 MYA (million years ago) from an ancestral formaldehyde dehydrogenase line. Like many duplications at that time, it correlates with enzymogenesis of new activities, contributing to conditions for emergence of vertebrate land life from osseous fish. The speed of changes correlates with function, as do differential evolutionary patterns in separate segments. Subsequent recognitions now define at least 40 human MDR members in the Uniprot database (corresponding to 25 genes when excluding close homologues), and in all species at least 10888 entries. Overall, variability is large, but like for many dehydrogenases, subdivided into constant and variable forms, corresponding to household and emerging enzyme activities, respectively. This review covers basic facts and describes eight large MDR families and nine smaller families. Combined, they have specific substrates in metabolic pathways, some with wide substrate specificity, and several with little known functions

Scalable MAC protocol for D2D communication for future 5G networks

© 2017 IEEE. Device-to-device communication (D2D) will be an integral part of 5G wireless networks. Device-to-Device (D2D) communication provide the additional resources to the cellular users for spatially reusing licensed/unlicensed spectrum by establishing direct communication. Although, D2D communication is gaining significant attention towards offloading traffic in heterogeneous networks in licensed band, no attention has been given to offload traffic in an unlicensed band in a centralized manner. However, a major challenge of D2D communication is managing resources in an efficient manner in a heterogeneous network. This paper will direct a new approach to D2D Communication and will present a scalable MAC protocol for D2D communications based on Point Coordination Function (PCF) access mechanism. The importance of PCF access mechanism is that it operates in a centralized manner and highly suitable for the dense environment, hence, can create a centralized control in a distributive manner. In this article, we propose an innovative three tier 5G architecture for D2D communication, which will offload cellular traffic from the cellular network to the WLAN in a dense environment. Moreover, we will present a new centralized scalable MAC protocol for D2D communication between WLAN users, based on the IEEE 802.11 Point Coordination Function (PCF) access mechanism. Our simulation results show that the proposed MAC scheme can increase the capacity of the network and perform better relative to the legacy Distributed coordination Function (DCF) defined in IEEE 802.11

Analysis of effective capacity and throughput of polling-based device-to-device networks

© 1967-2012 IEEE. Next-generation wireless networks will give rise to heterogeneous networks by integrating multiple wireless access technologies to provide seamless mobility to mobile users with high-speed wireless connectivity. Device-to-device (D2D) communication has proven to be a promising technology that can increase the capacity and coverage of wireless networks. The D2D communication was first introduced in long-term evolution advanced (LTE-A) and has gained immense popularity for the offloading traffic using the licensed and unlicensed band. Challenges arise from resource allocation, provision of quality-of-service (QoS), and the quantification of capacity in an unlicensed band due to the distributed nature of Wi-Fi. In this paper, we propose an analytical performance model for the scalable MAC protocol (SC-MP) in which a resource allocation mechanism is based on the IEEE 802.11 point coordinated function to access the Wi-Fi channel for voice and video/multimedia traffic. In the SC-MP, D2D communication is applied to further offload the video/multimedia traffic. In particular, this paper establishes a three-state semi-Markovian model to derive a closed-form expression of effective capacity in terms of transmission rate and quality-of-service. Further, the SC-MP is analytically modeled using the four-state traditional Markov model to derive the saturation throughput. The analytical results are validated through simulations, hence, proving the appropriateness of the model

Teacher Efficacy and Commitment in Teaching Arabic: a Correlational Study

The current study explores the validity and reliability of the instrument used in assessing teachers' efficacy in teaching Arabic and also their commitment to teaching. The study also examined Arabic teaching efficacy in relation to teacher commitment. The study involved 252 teachers out of 487 teachers from 57 National Religious Secondary Schools throughout Malaysia. A structural equation modeling with AMOS was employed to investigate the effects of the hypotheses model. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the adequacy of the constructs of teacher efficacy and teacher commitment and found that the two constructs were multidimensional constructs with four underlying dimensions respectively. The findings also showed that teacher efficacy influences teacher commitment. Several essential theoretical implications for developing and enhancing teachers in the Malaysian Secondary Arabic education context have arisen from the current study

PCF-based LTE Wi-Fi aggregation for coordinating and offloading the cellular traffic to D2D network

© 2018 IEEE. Device-to-device (D2D) communication is a promising technology towards 5G networks. D2D communication can offload traffic using licensed/unlicensed band by establishing a direct communication between two users without traversing the base station or core network. However, one of the major challenges of D2D communication is resource allocation and guaranteeing quality-of-service (QoS). In this paper, we establish an optimal queuing scheduling and resource allocation problem for three-tier heterogeneous network based on LTE Wi-Fi aggregation, to offload voice/multimedia traffic from licensed band to unlicensed band using scalable MAC protocol (SC-MP) under various static delay constraints. The access mechanism used for Wi-Fi in SC-MP is point coordination function, which further offloads the multimedia traffic using D2D communication in unlicensed band. Resource allocation and optimal joint queuing scheduling problems are formulated with diverse QoS guarantee between licensed and unlicensed band to minimize the bandwidth of licensed band. Furthermore, an iterative algorithm is proposed to express the nonconvex problem as a series of subproblems based on block coordinate descent and difference of two convex functions (D.C) program. We have simulated the proposed scheme using two scenarios: Voice traffic using licensed band and voice traffic using both licensed and unlicensed band, whereas multimedia traffic uses unlicensed band for both the scenarios. The simulation results show that both the schemes perform better than the existing scheme and scenario 2 outperforms scenario 1