Wonho Kim

An experimental study on the capture effect in 802.11a networks

In wireless networks, a frame collision does not necessarily result in all the simultaneously transmitted frames being lost. Depending on the relative signal power and the arrival timing of the involved frames, one frame can survive the collision and be successfully received by the receiver. Using our IEEE 802.11a wireless network testbed, we carry out a measurement study that shows the terms and conditions (timing, power difference, bit rate) under which this capture effect takes place. Recent measurement work on the capture effect in 802.11 networks [10] argues that the stronger frame can be successfully decoded only in two cases: (1) The stronger frame arrives earlier than the weaker frame, or (2) the stronger frame arrives later than the weaker frame but within the preamble time of the weaker frame. However, our measurement shows that the stronger frame can be decoded correctly regardless of the timing relation with the weaker frame. In addition, when the stronger frame arrives later than the weaker frames arrival, the physical layer capture exhibits two very distinct patterns based on whether the receiver has been successfully synchronized to the previous weak frame or not. In explaining the distinct cases we observe that the successful capture of a frame involved in a collision is determined through two stages: preamble detection and the frame body FCS check.

Mahout: Low-overhead datacenter traffic management using end-host-based elephant detection

Datacenters need high-bandwidth interconnection fabrics. Several researchers have proposed highly-redundant topologies with multiple paths between pairs of end hosts for datacenter networks. However, traffic management is necessary to effectively utilize the bisection bandwidth provided by these topologies. This requires timely detection of elephant flows—flows that carry large amount of data—and managing those flows. Previously proposed approaches incur high monitoring overheads, consume significant switch resources, and/or have long detection times. We propose, instead, to detect elephant flows at the end hosts. We do this by observing the end hostss socket buffers, which provide better, more efficient visibility of flow behavior. We present Mahout, a low-overhead yet effective traffic management system that follows OpenFlow-like central controller approach for network management but augments the design with our novel end host mechanism. Once an elephant flow is detected, an end host signals the network controller using in-band signaling with low overheads. Through analytical evaluation and experiments, we demonstrate the benefits of Mahout over previous solutions.

Understanding interference and carrier sensing in wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks aim to provide high-speed Internet service without costly network infrastructure deployment and maintenance. The main obstacle in achieving high-capacity wireless mesh networks is interference between the mesh links. In this article, we analyze the carrier sensing and interference relations between two wireless links and measure the impact of these relations on link capacity on an indoor 802.11a mesh network testbed. We show that asymmetric carrier sensing and/or interference relations commonly exist in wireless mesh networks, and we study their impact on the link capacity and fair-channel access. In addition, we investigate the effect of traffic rate on link capacity in the presence of interference.

RSS-based Carrier Sensing and Interference Estimation in 802.11 Wireless Networks

We analyze the carrier sensing and interference relations between the two wireless links and measure the impact of these relations on link capacity in two indoor 802.11a mesh network testbeds. We show that asymmetric carrier sensing and/or interference relations happen frequently in wireless networks; these asymmetric relations affect not only the level of performance degradation, but also the fairness of channel access. We then propose a new methodology that predicts the relation of carrier sensing and interference based on radio signal strength measurements. The measurement complexity increases only linearly with the number of wireless nodes. To our knowledge, the proposed methodology is the first trial that considers physical layer capture, and detects the source of interference that is out of the communication range. We validate the prediction methodology on an 11-node wireless mesh network testbed.

Drosophila Salt-inducible Kinase (SIK) Regulates Starvation Resistance through cAMP-response Element-binding Protein (CREB)-regulated Transcription Coactivator (CRTC)

Salt-inducible kinase (SIK), one of the AMP-activated kinase (AMPK)-related kinases, has been suggested to play important functions in glucose homeostasis by inhibiting the cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB)-regulated transcription coactivator (CRTC). To examine the role of SIK in vivo, we generated Drosophila SIK mutant and found that the mutant flies have higher amounts of lipid and glycogen stores and are resistant to starvation. Interestingly, SIK transcripts are highly enriched in the brain, and we found that neuron-specific expression of exogenous SIK fully rescued lipid and glycogen storage phenotypes as well as starvation resistance of the mutant. Using genetic and biochemical analyses, we demonstrated that CRTC Ser-157 phosphorylation by SIK is critical for inhibiting CRTC activity in vivo. Furthermore, double mutants of SIK and CRTC became sensitive to starvation, and the Ser-157 phosphomimetic mutation of CRTC reduced lipid and glycogen levels in the SIK mutant, suggesting that CRTC mediates the effects of SIK signaling. Collectively, our results strongly support the importance of the SIK-CRTC signaling axis that functions in the brain to maintain energy homeostasis in Drosophila.

Surface modification of a ferroelectric polymer insulator for low-voltage readable nonvolatile memory in an organic field-effect transistor

We demonstrate that the sequential surface modification of a ferroelectric polymer insulator plays an essential role in both the enhancement of the carrier mobility and the shift in the turn-on voltage (Von) in an organic ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET) for nonvolatile memory. The surface of a ferroelectric polymer insulator, poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene), is physicochemically modified by the successive treatments of ultraviolet-ozone (UVO) and CF4 plasma to understand how the surface morphology and the hydrophobicity affect the grain size, the mobility, and Von in the FeFET. In a pentacene-based FeFET, the CF4 plasma irradiation leads to the mobility enhancement by a factor of about 5 as well as the shift in Von toward a positive voltage direction while the UVO treatment results in only the shift in Von toward a negative voltage direction. It is found that the sequence of the two successive treatments is critical for tailoring interfacial interactions between the ferroelectric...

Structural origin of the mobility enhancement in a pentacene thin-film transistor with a photocrosslinking insulator

We present the underlying mechanism for the mobility enhancement in a pentacene thin-film transistor (TFT) with a photocrosslinking polymeric insulator, poly(vinyl cinnamate) (PVCi). Experimental results for the optical anisotropy, x-ray diffraction, and microscopic layer-by-layer coverage of the pentacene film on the photocrosslinked PVCi layer, exposed to a linearly polarized ultraviolet (LPUV) light, clearly demonstrate the importance of the structural packing of pentacene grains rather than the directional alignment of the pentacene molecules for the mobility enhancement. The packing density of pentacene grains is directly related to the number of photocrosslinking sites of the PVCi insulator produced by the LPUV. It is found that the mobility in the pentacene TFT is linearly proportional to the number of photocrosslinked sites of the PVCi insulator serving as interaction sites for the layer-by-layer coverage of the pentacene molecules with no preferred orientation.

Importance of the Functional Group Density of a Polymeric Gate Insulator for Organic Thin-Film-Transistors

We describe the importance of the functional group density of polymeric insulators (PI) for organic thin-film-transistors (OTFTs) in terms of the insulator processing temperature and the exposure of a linearly polarized ultraviolet (LPUV) light. The PI layers processed at lower temperatures than the boiling temperature (Tb) of the solvent have higher densities of functional groups than those processed above Tb. The carrier mobility in the pentacene OTFT processed below Tb increases at least by a factor of three with maintaining other electrical properties such as the threshold voltage and the current on/off ratio. Our results suggest that the preferential alignment of the pentacene molecules is not the main physical mechanism for the mobility enhancement. From the mobility anisotropy resulting from the polarization of the LPUV, the packing density of the pentacene molecules on the PI layer, dictated primarily by the density of functional groups, is found to play a critical role on the magnitude of the mobility.

Understanding and characterizing PlanetLab resource usage for federated network testbeds

Global network testbeds are crucial for innovative network research. Built on the success of PlanetLab, the next generation of federated testbeds are under active development, but very little is known about resource usage in the shared infrastructures. In this paper, we conduct an extensive study of the usage profiles in PlanetLab that we collected for six years by running CoMon, a PlanetLab monitoring service. We examine various aspects of node-level behavior as well as experiment-centric behavior, and describe their implications for resource management in the federated testbeds. Our main contributions are threefold: (1) Contrary to common belief, our measurements show there is no tragedy of the commons in PlanetLab, since most PlanetLab experiments exploit the systems network reach more than just its hardware resources; (2) We examine resource allocation systems proposed for the federated testbeds, such as bartering and central banking schemes, and show that they would handle only a small percentage of the total usage in PlanetLab; and (3) Lastly, we identify factors that account for high resource contention or poor utilization in PlanetLab nodes. We analyze workload imbalance and problematic slices in PlanetLab, and describe the implications of our measurements for improving overall utility of the testbed.

Effects of Interfacial Charge Depletion in Organic Thin-Film Transistors with Polymeric Dielectrics on Electrical Stability

We investigated the electrical stabilities of two types of pentacene-based organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with two different polymeric dielectrics: polystyrene (PS) and poly(4-vinyl phenol) (PVP), in terms of the interfacial charge depletion. Under a short-term bias stress condition, the OTFT with the PVP layer showed a substantial increase in the drain current and a positive shift of the threshold voltage, while the PS layer case exhibited no change. Furthermore, a significant increase in the off-state current was observed in the OTFT with the PVP layer which has a hydroxyl group. In the presence of the interfacial hydroxyl group in PVP, the holes are not fully depleted during repetitive operation of the OTFT with the PVP layer and a large positive gate voltage in the off-state regime is needed to effectively refresh the electrical characteristics. It is suggested that the depletion-limited holes at the interface, i.e., interfacial charge depletion, between the PVP layer and the pentacene layer play a critical role on the electrical stability during operation of the OTFT.