Muneeb Dawood

The social side of theory: A community-based narrative of research and theory.

Theory is a central issue to be considered by researchers, particularly new researchers such as research students. In this paper we describe the role theory had in developing a research community. This community, the Information Society Doctoral Programme, faced with the usual questions that researchers have regarding theory, undertook a prolonged discourse on theory, using a range of means of discussion. The current paper describes the development of this discourse and its influence on the development of a shared research identity. The result of the discourse was not agreement on any particular theoretical positions but an increased ability to understand one another across theoretical divides. The paper thus develops a narrative of the role theory can have in shaping community, a perspective usually neglected in theoretical discourses.

Level-Based Peer-to-Peer Live Streaming with Rateless Codes

We propose a peer-to-peer system for streaming user-generated live video. Peers are arranged in levels so that video is delivered at about the same time to all peers in the same level, and peers in a higher level watch the video before those in a lower level. We encode the video bit stream with rate less codes and use trees to transmit the encoded symbols. Trees are constructed to minimize the transmission rate for the source while maximizing the number of served peers and guaranteeing on-time delivery and reliability at the peers. We formulate this objective as a height bounded spanning forest problem with nodal capacity constraint and compute a solution using a heuristic polynomial-time algorithm. We conduct ns-2 simulations to study the trade-off between used bandwidth and video quality for various packet loss rates and link latencies.

Fault-tolerant generator telecontrol over a microgrid IP network

The liberalization of the energy markets, combined with the drive towards a low-carbon economy, has led to the development of the concept of the smart grid. The smart grid is an energy distribution network that enables real-time information exchange for monitoring, control and protection of energy equipment as well as the physical transfer of energy. When smart grid control applications such as generator regulation are implemented over standard IP networks, the stability of the closed-loop has been found to be highly dependent upon the network induced delay, jitter and packet losses. In this paper, we propose and test a fault-tolerant buffering technique and related control design method to enable the effective telecontrol of a generator in such a situation. Computational experiments demonstrate that clear improvements to the closed loop performance and stability can be observed.

Peer-to-peer live video streaming with rateless codes for massively multiplayer online games

We present a multi-level multi-overlay hybrid peer-to-peer live video system that enables players of Massively Multiplayer Online Games to simultaneously stream the video of their game and watch the game videos of other players. Each live video bitstream is encoded with rateless codes and multiple trees are used to transmit the encoded symbols. Trees are constructed dynamically with the aim to minimize the transmission rate at the source while maximizing the number of served peers and guaranteeing on-time delivery and reliability. ns-2 simulations and real measurements on the Internet show competitive performance in terms of start-up delay, playback lag, rejection rate, used bandwidth, continuity index, and video quality.

Integrating Technologies for Demand Response in Blocks of Buildings - A UK Case Study

Flexibility in contemporary energy systems is predominantly delivered by fossil fuels. Low carbon energy services are required to avoid dangerous climate change, however, in the electricity sector, energy flows must be balanced instantaneously, and many renewable resources are either variable, uncertain or both. Demand Response (DR) enables consumers to play a significant role in the delivery of flexibility on the electric grid by reducing or shifting their electricity usage during periods of stress or constraint. The value of DR to blocks of buildings depends on the telemetry and control technologies in existing building management systems and the potential revenue sources. To encourage the growth of DR servicesO and reap the potential benefits, it is necessary to characterise the economic and environmental benefits of DR. The EU Horizon 2020 co-funded project ODemand Response in Blocks of BuildingsO (DR-BOB: www.dr-bob.eu) aims to do just that. This paper describes the technical approach taken by the DR-BOB project at its Teesside University site, focussing on the challenges encountered and the solutions proposed for this city centre campus. It updates previous work (Crosbie et al, 2016) that has described the broader principles and technologies being evaluated at four sites across Europe.

Error-resilient packet-switched mobile video telephony with channel-adaptive rateless coding and early reference picture selection

Providing high-quality video for packet-switched wireless video telephony on handheld devices is a challenging task due to packet loss, varying bandwidth, and end-to-end delay constraints. While many error resilience techniques have been proposed for video transmission over wireless channels, only a few were specifically designed for mobile video telephony. We propose a low-complexity channel-adaptive error resilience technique for packet-switched mobile video telephony, which combines rateless coding, feedback, and reference picture selection. In contrast to previous approaches, our technique uses cumulative feedback at every transmission opportunity and predicts when decoding is likely to fail so that reference picture selection can be triggered at an early stage. Experimental results for H.264 video sequences show that the proposed technique can achieve improvements of 1.64 dB in peak signal-to-noise ratio over benchmark techniques in simulated Long-Term Evolution networks.