Josephina Antoniou

4G Converged Environment: Modeling Network Selection as a Game

Network selection mechanism in 4G mobile networks is a newly introduced mechanism that handles the selection of the best network to satisfy a service request. Network selection needs to take part prior to admission of the service in a particular access network participating in the 4G system. This paper proposes to model this decision using a game theoretic approach; specifically defining a game between the access networks themselves, competing in a non-cooperative manner to maximize their payoff. The outcome of the game is a decision of which subset of the set of service requests made to the 4G converged system should be admitted by each access network.

Cooperative user-network interactions in next generation communication networks

Next Generation Communication Networks employ the idea of convergence, where heterogeneous access technologies may coexist, and a user may be served by anyone of the participating access networks, motivating the emergence of a Network Selection mechanism. The triggering and execution of the Network Selection mechanism becomes a challenging task due to the heterogeneity of the entities involved, i.e., the users and the access networks. This heterogeneity results in different and often conflicting interests for these entities, motivating the question of how they should behave in order to remain satisfied from their interactions. This paper studies cooperative user-network interactions and seeks appropriate modes of behaviour for these entities such that they achieve own satisfaction overcoming their conflicting interests.

Game Theory in Communication Networks: Cooperative Resolution of Interactive Networking Scenarios

A mathematical tool for scientists and researcherswho work with computer and communication networks, Game Theory in Communication Networks: Cooperative Resolution of Interactive Networking Scenarios addresses the question of how to promote cooperative behavior in interactive situations between heterogeneous entities in communication networking scenarios. It explores network design and management from a theoretical perspective, using game theory and graph theory to analyze strategic situations and demonstrate profitable behaviors of the cooperative entities. The book promotes the use of Game Theory to address important resource management and security issues found in next generation communications networks, particularly heterogeneous networks, for cases where cooperative interactive networking scenarios can be formulated. It provides solutions for representative mechanisms that need improvement by presenting a theoretical step-by-step approach. The text begins with a presentation of theory that can be used to promote cooperation for the entities in a particular interactive situation. Next, it examines two-player interaction as well as interactions between multiple players. The final chapter presents and examines a performance evaluation framework based on MATLAB. Each chapter begins by introducing basic theory for dealing with a particular interactive situation and illustrating how particular aspects of game theory can be used to formulate and solve interactive situations that appear in communication networks regularly. The second part of each chapter presents example scenarios that demonstrate the applicability and power of the theoryillustrating a number of cooperative interactions and discussing how they could be addressed within the theoretical framework presented in the first part of the chapter. The book also includes simulation code that canbe downloaded so you can use some or all of the proposed models to improve your own network designs. Specific topics covered include network selection, user-network interaction, network synthesis, and context-aware security provisioning.

Session and Network Support for Autonomous Context-Aware Multiparty Communications in Heterogeneous Mobile Systems

The increase of networking complexity requires the design of new performance optimization schemes for delivering different types of sessions to users under different conditions. In this regard, special attention is given to multi-homed environments, where mobile devices cross areas with overlapping access technologies Wi-Fi, 3G, WiMax. In such a scenario, efficient multiparty delivery depends upon the grouping operation, which must be done based on several parameters. In this paper, the authors propose context-aware sub-grouping of content-based service groups so that the same service session can be delivered using different codings of the same content, adapting to current network, users, session, and environment context. The context-aware information is used to improve the sub-grouping process. This paper aims to describe these sub-grouping techniques, and in particular how they improve network performance and user experience in the future Internet by focusing on the improved network-level and session-level mechanisms.

Adaptive network-aided session support in context-aware converged mobile networks

The increase of networking complexity requires the design of new performance optimisation schemes for delivering sessions to users under different conditions. This paper addresses context-aware, adaptive multiparty sessions in a heterogeneous network environment. The effective usage of context information can lead to context-aware content casting, especially context-aware, adaptive multicasting. Efficient multiparty delivery depends upon grouping (creation of a set of users to receive a given session), which must be done based on several parameters; both at session and at network level. Therefore, the key functionality of an enhanced session management is to motivate creation of user subgroups, subsets of a content group based on network, user and environment context. Their characteristics in the form of content descriptions are communicated to the media delivery to obtain the appropriate content for each session. This paper presents in detail the initiation of an adaptive, context-aware multicast session.

A game theory-based approach to reducing interference in dense deployments of home wireless networks

Urban residential areas are becoming increasingly dense with more and more home networks being deployed in close proximity. The paper considers a dense urban residential area where each house/unit has its own wireless access point (AP), deployed without any coordination with other such units. In this situation, it would be much better if neighbouring APs — i.e., APs that are physically close to each other — would form groups, where one member of the group would serve the terminals of all group members in addition to its own terminals, while the other access points of the group can be silent or even turned off, thus reducing interference and increasing overall Quality of Experience (QoE). The fact that participating units are deployed without any coordination makes the overall QoE vulnerable to the selfish behaviour of each unit. We propose a protocol where each unit operates in an equilibrium of a cooperative-neighbourhood game. We show using a game theoretic model that there exists a motivation for APs to enter and remain in cooperative neighbourhoods, in which interference is decreased due to the voluntary cooperation of the neighbours.

Cooperation among access points for enhanced quality of service in dense wireless environments

The high popularity of Wi-Fi technology for wireless access has led to a common problem of densely deployed access points (APs) in residential or commercial buildings, competing to use the same or overlapping frequency channels and causing a degradation to the user experience due to excessive interference. This degradation is partly caused by the restriction where each client device is allowed to be served only by one of a very limited set of APs (e.g. belonging to the same residential unit), even if it is within range of (or even has a better signal quality to) many other APs. In this paper, we propose a cooperative strategy to mitigate the interference and enhance the quality of service in dense wireless deployments, by having neighboring APs agree to take turns (e.g. in round-robin fashion) to serve each others clients. We present and analyze a cooperative game-theoretic model of the incentives involved in such cooperation and identify the conditions under which cooperation would be beneficial for the participating APs.

An experience report on the effectiveness of five themed workshops at inspiring high school students to learn coding

Today there is a high demand for computing programmers, and at the same time a shortage of skilled professionals. This has triggered the creation of many initiatives in the past few years, with the aim of reversing the phenomenon. To achieve this, such events are designed to promote a more appealing image for programming, both as a profession and as a skill. This paper describes one such initiative, which uses a unique blend of differently themed, parallel workshops to motivate high school students to learn programming. With the use of questionnaires, we survey the participants and present our findings concerning the effectiveness of these workshops to engage the participants, to promote the value of coding, and to encourage the participants to consider a career in the field. We evaluate our results both at a general level, as well as by comparison among five individually themed workshops.

Cooperative Games Among Densely Deployed WLAN Access Points

The high popularity of Wi-Fi technology for wireless access has led to a common problem of densely deployed access points (APs) in residential or commercial buildings, competing to use the same or overlapping frequency channels and causing degradation to the user experience due to excessive interference. This degradation is partly caused by the restriction where each client device is allowed to be served only by one of a very limited set of APs (e.g., belonging to the same residential unit), even if it is within the range of (or even has a better signal quality to) many other APs. The current chapter proposes a cooperative strategy to mitigate the interference and enhance the quality of service in dense wireless deployments by having neighboring APs agree to take turns (e.g., in round-robin fashion) to serve each other’s clients. We present and analyze a cooperative game-theoretic model of the incentives involved in such cooperation and identify the conditions under which cooperation would be beneficial for the participating APs.

Technical considerations towards mobile user QoE enhancement via Cloud interaction

This paper discusses technical considerations of a Cloud infrastructure which interacts with mobile devices in order to migrate part of the computational overhead from the mobile device to the Cloud. The aim of the interaction between the mobile device and the Cloud is the enhancement of parameters that affect the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the mobile end-user through the offloading of computational aspects of demanding applications. This paper shows that mobile users QoE can be potentially enhanced by offloading computational tasks to the Cloud which incorporates a predictive context-aware mechanism to schedule delivery of content to the mobile end-user using a low-cost interaction model between the Cloud and the mobile user. With respect to the proposed enhancements, both the technical considerations of the cloud infrastructure are examined, as well as the interaction between the mobile device and the Cloud.