11389576
Ultra-wideband wireless communications
Summary Ultra-wideband (UWB) communication techniques have attracted a great interest in both academia and industry in the past few years for applications in short-range wireless mobile systems. This is due to the potential advantages of UWB transmissions such as low power, high rate, immunity to multipath propagation, less complex transceiver hardware, and low interference. However, tremendous R&D efforts are required to face various technical challenges in developing UWB wireless systems, including UWB channel characterization, transceiver design, coexistence and interworking with other narrowband wireless systems, design of the link and network layers to benefit from UWB transmission characteristics. This paper is to provide an overview of UWB communications, summarize the previous research results, and identify further research issues that need to be tackled. The emphasis is placed on the commercial wireless communications. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
9894542
Reliability optimization of distributed access networks with constrained total cost
In this paper, we study the system reliability optimization of distributed access networks subject to a constraint on the total cost. We first formulate the cost-constrained system reliability optimization problem as a searching process in a combinatorial tree, which enumerates all the possible solutions to the problem. Because the calculation of each possible solution for the reliability problem is extremely time-consuming, a novel algorithm, the Shrinking & Searching Algorithm (SSA), is proposed to speed up the searching process. SSA jointly considers the upper bound of the system reliability for each branch in the combinatorial tree, and the cost constraint on the possible solutions. It avoids most of the redundant calculations in the searching process by gradually shrinking the difference between lower & upper bounds of the length of a path in the corresponding combinatorial tree, which represents a feasible solution. Case study & simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the SSA.
16600319
Update-Based Cache Access and Replacement in Wireless Data Access
Cache has been applied for wireless data access with different replacement policies in wireless networks. Most of the current cache replacement schemes are access-based replacement policies since they are based on object access frequency/recency information. Access-based replacement policies either ignore or do not focus on update information. However, update information is extremely important since it can make access information almost useless. In this paper, we consider two fundamental and strongly consistent access algorithms: poll-per-read (PER) and call-back (CB). We propose a server-based PER (SB-PER) cache access mechanism in which the server makes replacement decisions and a client-based CB cache access mechanism in which clients make replacement decisions. Both mechanisms have been designed to be suitable for using both update frequency and access frequency. We further propose two update-based replacement policies, least access-to-update ratio (LA2U) and least access-to-update difference (LAUD). We provide a thorough performance analysis via extensive simulations for evaluating these algorithms in terms of access rate, update rate, cache size, database size, object size, etc. Our study shows that although effective hit ratio is a better metric than cache hit ratio, it is a worse metric than transmission cost, and a higher effective hit ratio does not always mean a lower cost. In addition, the proposed SB-PER mechanism is better than the original PER algorithm in terms of effective hit ratio and cost, and the update-based policies outperform access-based policies in most cases
768133
Performance analysis of TCP-friendly AIMD algorithms for multimedia applications
In this paper, the performance of TCP-friendly generic AIMD (Additive Increase and Multiplicative Decrease) algorithms for Web-based playback and multirate multimedia applications is investigated. The necessary and sufficient TCP-friendly condition is derived, and the effectiveness and responsiveness of AIMD are studied. Due to practical implications, a Dynamic TCP-friendly AIMD (DTAIMD) algorithm is proposed. Extensive simulation results are given to verify the derived necessary and sufficient condition, and to demonstrate the performance of the proposed DTAIMD algorithm.
7313627
Voice capacity analysis of WLAN with unbalanced traffic
An analytical model to study the performance of wireless local area networks (WLANs) supporting asymmetric nonpersistent traffic using the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function mode for medium access control (MAC) is developed. Given the parameters of the MAC protocol and voice codecs, the voice capacity of an infrastructure-based WLAN, in terms of the maximum number of voice connections that can be supported with satisfactory user-perceived quality, is obtained. In addition, voice capacity analysis reveals how the overheads from different layers, codec rate, and voice packetization interval affect voice traffic performance in WLANs, which provides an important guideline for network planning and management. The analytical results can be used for effective call admission control to guarantee the quality of voice connections. Extensive simulations have been performed to validate the analytical results
415324
Mobility information for resource management in wireless ATM networks
User mobility poses a significant technical challenge to network resource management in wireless ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networks. In order to guarantee quality of service (QoS) to mobile users and to achieve a high efficiency in network resource management, the information of mobile users' handoff at a future moment is essential for statistical multiplexing. This paper develops a novel fuzzy logic inference system to estimate the user mobility information for a wireless ATM network which uses a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) protocol. The estimation is based on measured pilot signal strengths from a number of the nearest base stations by the mobile user. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed technique under various path losses and channel shadowing conditions. The proposed technique can achieve simplicity, accuracy and low cost.
7243220
Finding multiple routing paths in wide-area WDM networks
In this paper the multiple routing path problem in wide area Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) networks is considered, which is to find K edge-disjoint lightpaths/semi-lightpaths from a source to a destination such that the K paths meet some specified optimization objectives if they exist. Two versions of the problem are studied One is to minimize the total cost of the K paths. Another is to minimize the cost of the maximum cost path among the K paths. An efficient algorithm for the first version is proposed, which takes O (kK (kn + m + n log(kn))) time and delivers an exact solution, where n, m, and k are the number of nodes, links and wavelengths in the network. The second version of the problem is shown to be NP-hard, and an approximate algorithm for it is devised, delivering an approximate solution that is K times the optimum, where K /spl ges/ 2.
1789234
Phase-Based Miss Rate Prediction Across Program Inputs
Previous work shows the possibility of predicting the cache miss rate (CMR) for all inputs of a program. However, most optimization techniques need to know more than the miss rate of the whole program. Many of them benefit from knowing miss rate of each execution phase of a program for all inputs. 
 
In this paper, we describe a method that divides a program into phases that have a regular locality pattern. Using a regression model, it predicts the reuse signature and then the cache miss rate of each phase for all inputs. We compare the prediction with the actual measurement. The average prediction is over 98% accurate for a set of floating-point programs. The predicted CMR-traces matches the simulated ones in spite of dramatic fluctuations of the miss rate over time. This technique can be used for improving dynamic optimization, benchmarking, and compiler design.
7524839
A session-based search engine
In this poster, we describe a novel session-based search engine, which puts the search in context. The search engine has a number of session-based features including expansion of the current query with user query history and clickthrough data (title and summary of clicked web pages) in the same search session and the session boundary recognition through temporal closeness and probabilistic similarity between query terms. In addition, the search engine visualizes the rank change of web pages as different queries are submitted in the same search session to help the user reformulate the query.
7858282
Gated memory control for memory monitoring, leak detection and garbage collection
In the past, program monitoring often operates at the code level, performing checks at function and loop boundaries. Recent research shows that profiling analysis can identify high-level phases in complex binary code. Examples are time steps in scientific simulations and service cycles in utility programs. Because of their larger size and more predictable behavior, program phases make it possible for more accurate and longer term predictions of program behavior, especially its memory usage. This paper describes a new approach that uses phase boundaries as the gates to monitor and control the memory usage. In particular, it presents three techniques: memory usage monitoring, object lifetime classification, and preventive memory management. They use phase-level patterns to predict the trend of the program's memory demand, identify and control memory leaks, improve the efficiency of garbage collection. The potential of the new techniques is demonstrated on two non-trivial applications---a C compiler and a Lisp interpreter.
19884866
A Tight Lower Bound on the Size of Visibility Graphs
The visibility graph of a finite set of line segments in the plane connects two endpoints u and v if and only if the straight line connection between u and v does not cross any line segment of the set. This article proves that 5n - 4 is a lower bound on the number of edges in the visibility graph of n nonintersecting line segments in the plane. This bound is tight.