Level Of Fairness Research Articles

Weighted Proportional Fair Scheduling for Downlink Nonorthogonal Multiple Access

A weighted proportional fair (PF) scheduling method is proposed in the context of nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the receiver side. The new scheme introduces weights that adapt the classical PF metric to the NOMA scenario, improving performance indicators and enabling new services. The distinguishing value of the proposal resides in its ability to improve long‐term fairness and total system throughput while achieving a high level of fairness in every scheduling slot. Finally, it is shown that the additional complexity caused by the weight calculation has only a limited impact on the overall scheduler complexity, while simulation results confirm the claimed improvements, making the proposal an appealing alternative for resource allocation in a cellular downlink system.

Analisis Kualitas Layanan Penyerapan Aspirasi Anggota DPR RI Dengan Pendekatan Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Public satisfaction can be achieved if the government apparatus directly involved in the service, can understand and appreciate and wish to perform excellent service. This study aims to identify the level of public satisfaction with the performance of Members of the House of Representatives Commission III, to determine the priority of expectations or public desires on the quality of service absorption aspirations of members of Parliament with Servqual method and improve the quality of absorption services by QFD method. This study, using questionnaires, interviews, and observations in data collection. Research respondents are citizens who have filed complaints totaling 100 people. The survey results are processed by using validity and reliability test, analysis of Importance-Performance Analyze (IPA), Servqual, and QFD. The results showed that the community was not satisfied with the performance of members of the House of Representatives with a gap of 0.84. The priority of improvement based on the IPA diagram is the level of professionalism in solving aspirations, the level of responsibility for the expectation of society aspirations, the level of fairness in the aspiration settlement, the level of aspiration service speed, the accuracy of responding to aspirations according to the problem, the timeliness of completing aspirations and the level of responsiveness to resolve aspirations. Increasing the quality of absorption services by QFD method can be done by increasing commitment, discipline, skilled human resources, coordination and synergy and policy improvement that is more concerned with the interests of the community.

고려전기 복시(覆試)의 시행과 기능

What was generally considered as the most important part of the whole Civil Examination system in the early half of the Goryeo period was the Jesul-gwa exam, which was composed of many steps from Hyanggong-shi to Gukjagamshi and then to Dongdang-shi, which was sometimes followed by another round called Bok-shi, in which the king would re-grade the performances of successful candidates and provide them with finalized ranks. These Bok-shi rounds were never held regularly, and only during the reigns of some kings.BR This Bok-shi round of Goryeo was called with various names. In the “Selection of Governmental official candidates” section(“Seon’geo-ji”) of Goryeosa it was called as Bok-shi, but in other records they were also called as either “Chin-shi” or “Eo-shi.” In personal anthologies or epitaph materials it was even called as ‘Jeon-shi,’ ‘Jeong-shi’ or ‘Yeomjeon-shi.’ In 977, the 2nd year of king Gyeongjong’s reign, a Chin-shi exam was held, in an attempt to (secure personnel who would) preserve accomplishments of earlier governmental reforms that had been conducted during king Gwangjong’s days. Then, Bok-shi was held for the first time in 983(2nd year of king Seongjong’s reign), and was also held in 994 and 995, within the parameters that had been established in the past few decades. Later, the frequency of these Bok-shi exams increased during the reign of king Hyeonjong. Through this Bok-shi exam, the kings were able to demonstrate that the institution itself was managed by the king and no one else. And apparently, they also wanted to raise the level of fairness of the exam, as well as the people’s trust in the practice itself.BR During the reigns of kings Deokjong and Jeongjong Bok-shi exams were never held, but coming into the reign of Munjong, they resumed. Munjong was quite a supporter of the Bok-shi practice and tried to use it as a vehicle that would reinforce his influence, as we can see from the frequency of these Bokshi exams, as well as the initiation of a Bok-shi round in the presence of the Crown prince, during his reign. Later, in the reigns of kings Seonjong and Sukjong, not only Bok-shi exams but another practice called ‘Sungjang’ as well were used to secure a personal relationship between the king and the successful candidates. And in the reign of king Yejong, governmental seats were immediately offered to those successful candidates.BR Yet the kings were not always able to accomplish what they set out to do. The Goryeo society considered literary creations very important, and “governmental policy (in other words, the kings’ own very agendas)” never always remained as subjects for government-overseen civil exams. And to make matters worse, in some cases, successful passers of Bok-shi rounds never even considered that as an honor, diminishing the exam’s authority in the process. As a result, it lost its prior status and was no longer able to be held in the reign of king Injong, when the civil exam system itself was revised and renovated.

Uncertainty Perpetuated? The Pitfalls of a Weakly Institutionalized Party System in Kyrgyzstan

The parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan in October 2015 garnered widespread approval from commentators for the level of fairness and freedom maintained throughout the campaign. However, the results of the vote do not provide a clear indication of the current state of affairs of parliamentarism in the republic. Focusing on the commercialization of party lists, we argue that neither identity politics nor the logic of neopatrimonialism adequately explain the dynamics of political competition in Kyrgyzstan. Instead, we see perpetual uncertainty emerging from contradicting yet increasing attempts to harness the capital of privatized party lists and to impose discipline. Eventually, and beyond short-term threats of an emerging super-presidentialism, Kyrgyzstan risks suffering from hollow parliamentarism, with political parties persistently failing to supply legislative initiatives with substantial agendas and adequate professionals. The weakly institutionalized political parties and their short-sighted electoral strategies undermine both the parliamentary system and its political pluralism.

A Fair Relay Selection Scheme for a DF Cooperative Network With Spatially Random Relays

A new, fair relay selection scheme is proposed for a dual-hop one-way decode-and-forward network with randomly distributed relays, in a general fading environment. Most of the reported works in the literature achieve fairness at the expense of degrading the outage probability performance. In addition, they often assume that the number and locations of the relays are fixed. In contrast, the proposed scheme achieves fairness in a random field of relays without deteriorating the outage probability performance. In this scheme, each relay maintains a countdown timer whose initial value is a function of the relay location and a tunable parameter that controls the level of fairness. The optimum value of this parameter is evaluated in an offline manner so as to achieve fairness by making the average powers consumed by the relays as close as possible. An integral-form analytical expression is derived for the average power consumed by each relay. This expression is then used to show the superiority of the proposed scheme over opportunistic relaying and random relay selection schemes in having better fairness performance.

Optimization of a Power Splitting Protocol for Two-Way Multiple Energy Harvesting Relay System

Energy harvesting (EH) combined with cooperative communications constitutes a promising solution for future wireless technologies. It enables additional efficiency and increased lifetime to wireless networks. This paper investigates a multiple-relay selection scheme for an EH-based two-way relaying (TWR) system. All relays are considered EH nodes that harvest energy from renewable energy and radio frequency (RF) sources. Some of them are selected to forward data to the destinations. The power splitting (PS) protocol, by which the EH node splits the input RF signal into two components for EH and information transmission, is adopted at the relay nodes. The objective is to jointly optimize: 1) the set of selected relays; 2) their PS ratios; and 3) their transmit power levels in order to maximize data rate-based utilities over multiple coherent time slots. A joint-optimization solution based on geometric programming (GP) and binary particle swarm optimization is proposed to solve non-convex problems for two utility functions reflecting the level of fairness in the TWR transmission. Numerical results illustrate the system’s behavior versus various parameters and show that the performance of the proposed scheme is very close to that of the optimal branch-and-bound method and that GP outperforms the dual problem-based method.

Fair and efficient energy consumption scheduling algorithm using tabu search for future smart grids

Group Autonomous Demand-Side Management (ADSM) programs have the ability to reduce the energy cost and the peak-to-average ratio of the load profile. This can be done through the scheduling of the day-ahead energy consumption profile. In this work, a group ADSM program in which customers cooperate to reduce the total energy generation cost is investigated. The requirements of smart appliances are mathematically modelled and an aggregative game is formulated to model the strategic behaviour of the customers. To reduce the computational complexity of the group ADSM programs, an efficient energy consumption scheduling (ECS) algorithm based on tabu search (TS) is proposed. To overcome the unfair billing that might be associated with current ADSM programs, a fair energy consumption billing mechanism is developed in which customers are charged according to their own energy consumption and commitment to the assigned schedules. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed TS-based scheduling algorithm achieves a considerable reduction in the computational complexity as compared to ECS algorithms based on parallel-Monte Carlo tree search and the benchmark branch and bound. Additionally, the results confirm that the proposed billing mechanism enhances the fairness level of the program.

Blockchain-Empowered Fair Computational Resource Sharing System in the D2D Network

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is becoming an increasingly important technology in future networks with the climbing demand for local services. For instance, resource sharing in the D2D network features ubiquitous availability, flexibility, low latency and low cost. However, these features also bring along challenges when building a satisfactory resource sharing system in the D2D network. Specifically, user mobility is one of the top concerns for designing a cooperative D2D computational resource sharing system since mutual communication may not be stably available due to user mobility. A previous endeavour has demonstrated and proven how connectivity can be incorporated into cooperative task scheduling among users in the D2D network to effectively lower average task execution time. There are doubts about whether this type of task scheduling scheme, though effective, presents fairness among users. In other words, it can be unfair for users who contribute many computational resources while receiving little when in need. In this paper, we propose a novel blockchain-based credit system that can be incorporated into the connectivity-aware task scheduling scheme to enforce fairness among users in the D2D network. Users’ computational task cooperation will be recorded on the public blockchain ledger in the system as transactions, and each user’s credit balance can be easily accessible from the ledger. A supernode at the base station is responsible for scheduling cooperative computational tasks based on user mobility and user credit balance. We investigated the performance of the credit system, and simulation results showed that with a minor sacrifice of average task execution time, the level of fairness can obtain a major enhancement.

공급사슬지향성과 거래공정성, 사회적 자본과 상생협력 공급사슬 간의 관계에 대한 연구

This study mainly aims to find out securing trade fairness according to supply chain orientation and the overall relationship between the establishment of social capital and win-win cooperation supply chain. For this, hypotheses between these research items were established and tested. The results are as follows. First, strategic supply chain orientation and structural supply chain orientation have a positive effect on process fairness, interaction fairness, and distribution fairness, which are the three factors of trade fairness. Process fairness, interaction fairness, and distribution fairness have a positive effect on social capital, and social capital was found to have a positive effect on win-win cooperation supply chain. The implications of this study are summarized as follows. First, this study suggested the importance of supply chain orientation to individual businesses. Second, enhancing supply chain orientation can ensure or guarantee trade fairness between businesses. Third, raising the level of trade fairness makes it possible to build social capital, which is an available resource in the supply chain relationship structure. Finally, it is suggested that securing social capital can finally help build and operate win-win cooperation supply chain.

Optimal Power Allocation Scheme for Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access With $\alpha $ -Fairness

This paper investigates the optimal power allocation scheme for sum throughput maximization of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system with $\alpha $ -fairness. In contrast to the existing fairness NOMA models, $\alpha $ -fairness can only utilize a single scalar to achieve different user fairness levels. Two different channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) assumptions are considered, namely, statistical and perfect CSIT. For statistical CSIT, fixed target data rates are predefined, and the power allocation problem is solved for sum throughput maximization with $\alpha $ -fairness, through characterizing several properties of the optimal power allocation solution. For perfect CSIT, the optimal power allocation is determined to maximize the instantaneous sum rate with $\alpha $ -fairness, where user rates are adapted according to the instantaneous channel state information (CSI). In particular, a simple alternate optimization algorithm is proposed, which is demonstrated to yield the optimal solution. Numerical results reveal that, at the same fairness level, NOMA significantly outperforms the conventional orthogonal multiple access for both the scenarios with statistical and perfect CSIT.

On the throughput performance of multirate IEEE 802.11 networks with variable-loaded stations: analysis, modeling, and a novel proportional fairness criterion

This paper focuses on multirate IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN employing the mandatory Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) option. Its aim is threefold. Upon starting from the multi-dimensional Markovian state transition model proposed by Malone et.al. for characterizing the behavior of the IEEE 802.11 protocol at the Medium Access Control layer, it presents an extension accounting for packet transmission failures due to channel errors. Second, it establishes the conditions under which a network constituted by N stations, each station transmitting with its own bit rate, Rd(s), and packet rate, λs, can be assumed loaded. Finally, it proposes a modified Proportional Fairness (PF) criterion, suitable for mitigating the rate anomaly problem of multirate loaded IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs, employing the mandatory DCF option. Compared to the widely adopted assumption of saturated network, the proposed fairness criterion can be applied to general loaded networks. The throughput allocation resulting from the proposed algorithm is able to greatly increase the aggregate throughput of the DCF, while ensuring fairness levels among the stations of the same order as the ones guaranteed by the classical PF criterion. Simulation results are presented for some sample scenarios, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed criterion for optimized throughput allocation.

Implementation of Economic Value Added and Market Value Added Analysis as Valuation Tools of Invest Feasibility

For the investors, financial statement is a benchmark of investors in assessing the company's performance. In fact, investors are not always receiving the accurate company's financial statements information and its levels of fairness are in doubt. The financial statement analysis with using financial ratios is not enough. The investors may need to use alternatives financial statement analyses techniques that reflect the actual company's performance. Therefore, both of the investors and the prospective can use Economic Value Added (EVA) and Market Value Added (MVA) analysis. With these technical analyses, the investors may know the company's performance where they are invested or to be used as a place to invest whether it has value added or not. With the results of these analyses, it is the expected for the investors to be more confident in making decision whether to buy, sell or hold the ownership in the company.

Modified Parameters of Harmony Search Algorithm for Better Searching

The scheduling and rostering problems are deliberated as integrated due to they depend on each other whereby the input of rostering problems is a scheduling problems. In this research, the integrated scheduling and rostering bus driver problems are defined as maximising the balance of the assignment of tasks in term of distribution of shifts and routes. It is essential to achieve is fairer among driver because this can bring to increase in driver levels of satisfaction. The latest approaches still unable to address the fairness problem that has emerged, thus this research proposes a strategy to adopt an amendment of a harmony search algorithm in order to address the fairness issue and thus the level of fairness will be escalate. The harmony search algorithm is classified as a meta-heuristics algorithm that is capable of solving hard and combinatorial or discrete optimisation problems. In this respect, the three main operators in HS, namely the Harmony Memory Consideration Rate (HMCR), Pitch Adjustment Rate (PAR) and Bandwidth (BW) play a vital role in balancing local exploitation and global exploration. These parameters influence the overall performance of the HS algorithm, and therefore it is crucial to fine-tune them. The contributions to this research are the HMCR parameter using step function while the fret spacing concept on guitars that is associated with mathematical formulae is also applied in the BW parameter. The model of constant step function is introduced in the alteration of HMCR parameter. The experimental results revealed that our proposed approach is superior than parameter adaptive harmony search algorithm. In conclusion, this proposed approach managed to generate a fairer roster and was thus capable of maximising the balancing distribution of shifts and routes among drivers, which contributed to the lowering of illness, incidents, absenteeism and accidents.

Wireless Powered Communication Networks With Non-Ideal Circuit Power Consumption

Assuming non-ideal circuit power consumption at the energy harvesting (EH) nodes, we propose two practical protocols that optimize the performance of the harvest-then-transmit wireless powered communication networks (WPCNs) under two different objectives: (1) proportional fair (PF) resource allocation, and (2) sum rate maximization. These objectives lead to optimal allocations for the transmit power by the base station (BS), which broadcasts RF radiation over the downlink, and optimal durations of the EH phase and the uplink information transmission phases within the dynamic time-division multiple access (TDMA) frame. Compared to the max-sum-rate protocol, the PF protocol attains a higher level of system fairness at the expense of the sum rate degradation. The PF protocol is advantageous over the max-sum-rate protocol in terms of system fairness regardless of the circuit power consumption, whereas the uplink sum rates of both protocols converge when this power consumption increases.

QoE-Driven Cross-Layer Downlink Scheduling for Heterogeneous Traffics Over 4G Networks

With the soaring demands for high speed data communication, as well as transmission of various types of services with different requirements over cellular networks, having a decent radio resource management is considered vital in Long Term Evolution (LTE) system. In particular, satisfying the quality of service (QoS) requirements of different applications is one of the key challenges of radio resource management that needs to be dealt by the LTE system. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer design scheme that jointly optimizes three different layers of wireless protocol stack, namely application, Medium Access Control, and physical layer. The cross-layer optimization framework provides efficient allocation of wireless resources across different types of applications (i.e., real-time and non real-time) run by different users to maximize network resource utilization and user-perceived QoS, or also known as Quality of Experience (QoE). Here, Mean Opinion Score is used as a unified QoE metric that indicates the user-perceived quality for real-time or multimedia services notably video applications. Along with multimedia services, the proposed framework also takes care of non-real-time traffic by ensuring certain level of fairness. Our simulation, applied to scenarios where users simultaneously run different types of applications, confirms that the proposed QoE-oriented cross-layer framework leads to significant improvement in terms of maximizing user-perceived quality as well as maintaining fairness among users.

Conceptualising primary labour relationship quality

Background: A typology of desirable social conditions in supervisory relationships suggested that such conditions may also be desirable in other forms of labour relationships. A literature review confirmed that trust, compliance, fairness and good faith can be confidently regarded as universally desirable social conditions in all forms of individual or collective labour relationships between employers and employees.Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine if primary labour relationship quality (PLQ) can be confidently conceptualised as a social construct that strongly relates to the perceived levels of compliance, fairness and good faith in supervisory or primary labour relationships.Setting: A combination of random and convenience sampling approaches was implemented to collect PLQ related data from 454 voluntary respondents, who were subordinate employees in the Tshwane region.Methods: A quantitative research methodology was adopted. This included conceptual definition of the PLQ construct, objective measurement of PLQ levels of voluntary respondents in an adequately sized sample, factor analysis and testing for relationships and differences in means between variables.Results: Data analysis results confirmed that it can be confidently concluded that the conceptual definition of PLQ was valid, and that positive PLQ perceptions of subordinate employees were significantly related to at least two other forms of desirable organisational outcomes.Conclusion: PLQ perceptions can be confidently defined as a distinct subjective quality estimate that is assimilated from unique expectations and perceptions of the levels of compliance, fairness, good faith and trust that a supervisor displays in a labour relationship with an immediate subordinate.

Optimal Performance Versus Fairness Tradeoff for Resource Allocation in Wireless Systems

Resource allocation is a challenging issue in multiuser wireless systems. Since users are not all in the same conditions and do not achieve the same performance given the same amount of resources, resource allocation must typically deal with the following two conflicting objectives: on the one hand, the overall performance should be maximized, tending to prioritize few users in better conditions, and on the other hand, fairness among users should be maximized, consequently reducing the overall performance. Identifying the compromise that is somehow optimum is all but simple and this aspect is normally worsened by the absence of a curve describing how the maximum performance varies changing the accepted level of fairness. To cover this gap, in this paper, we propose a unified and general mathematical formulation of the optimal performance versus fairness tradeoff in multiuser wireless communication systems. Differently from the existing literature, our approach is based on the generalized Lagrange method and adopts general definitions for both performance and fairness. Besides the exact solving equations describing how the maximum performance varies with fairness, we also derive a simpler lower bound with reduced computational cost. Example results are provided for two case studies, respectively, concerning linear and logarithmic dependence of performance on resources.

Waterfilling-Based Proportional Fairness Scheduler for Downlink Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

In this letter, a low-complexity waterfilling-based power allocation (PA) technique, incorporated within the proportional fairness scheduler, is proposed and applied to a non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) scheme in a cellular downlink system. The aim of the proposed joint PA and scheduling scheme is to maximize the achieved average throughput through a quasi-optimal repartition of the transmit power among subbands, while guaranteeing a high level of fairness in resource allocation. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed technique enhances both system capacity and user fairness, when compared to either orthogonal signaling or NOMA with static PA.

Test anxiety: perceptions of American community college nursing students

BackgroundNowadays, there are common phenomena among college nursing students who reported increasingly test anxiety. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to increase understanding of American community college nursing students and their experiences using anextended time and other form of supportive accommodation to address test anxiety.MethodsThis study utilized focus group interview and carefully selected eight participants to join this research. The authors completed coding, categorizing, and identification of themes based on Moustakes’ (1994, in Phenomenological research methods. Sage, Thousand Oaks) approach to data analysis. A transcription of the focus group recording was read to inform a general impression of the experiences of our participants. A final list of significant statements was developed, and from this list the authors grouped them into larger units of information and from these units, identified common themes (Creswell 2013 in Qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. Sage, Thousand Oaks).ResultsImplementation of, and data analysis from, an eight-member focus group interview revealed six themes: (a) students’ feelings of being anxious and overwhelmed, (b) the impact of nursing school stress, (c) the perceived benefits of using test accommodations, (d) environmental influences, (e) challenges and supportive structures for securing accommodations, and (f) metaperception of stigmatization.ConclusionsIn this study, students reported a benefit from using extended time for testing and noted the importance of the testing environment as an essential feature of the accommodation. Challenges faced by students included the ordeal of getting a diagnosis and potential for stigmatization. Participants indicated teachers provided essential support during this process. Study results suggest extended time accommodation provides an added level of fairness in the process of learning evaluation.

Towards Fair and Efficient Traffic Flow Coordination Mechanisms for 2+1 Roadways

Abstract In 2013, 2+1 roadways have become mandatory for newly constructed rural roadways in Germany. The steady trend towards autonomous vehicles and vehicle-to-X (V2X) communication will enable new automated traffic coordination mechanisms. In our research, we study how traffic flow on 2+1 roadways can be improved by using such mechanisms for coordinating the usage of overtaking lanes. Conflicts between vehicles on 2+1 roadways arise due to (1) differing capabilities (e.g. maximum speed), and (2) conflicting preferences of drivers (e.g. desired speed). These conflicts can lead to poor use of resources, and ultimately in time loss both from an individual vehicle and aggregated system perspective. To foster acceptance of coordination mechanisms, it is important to not only consider the system perspective but also to ensure some level of driver satisfaction and fairness, e.g. if vehicles are denied access to the overtaking lane in favour of faster vehicles, this raises questions regarding the acceptance of external coordination. While there is some research studying microscopic optimisation of traffic flows on rural 2+1 roads and intersections, there has been only little research focusing on driver satisfaction and fairness of mechanisms. In this work, we present the results of a pre-study on simulated 2+1 manoeuvres conducted using the Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) suite to estimate optimisation potentials of coordination. Preliminary results indicate potentials to reduce driver dissatisfaction while maintaining fairness. We analyse optimisation potentials and propose a model which combines driver satisfaction and fairness of coordination, aiming at increasing acceptance of autonomous vehicle coordination.