Macro Network Research Articles

Modeling effects of neural fluctuations and inter-scale interactions.

One of the greatest challenges to science, in particular, to neuroscience, is to understand how processes at different levels of organization are related to each other. In connection with this problem is the question of the functional significance of fluctuations, noise, and chaos. This paper deals with three related issues: (1) how processes at different organizational levels of neural systems might be related, (2) the functional significance of non-linear neurodynamics, including oscillations, chaos, and noise, and (3) how computational models can serve as useful tools in elucidating these types of issues. In order to capture and describe phenomena at different micro (molecular), meso (cellular), and macro (network) scales, the computational models need to be of appropriate complexity making use of available experimental data. I exemplify by two major types of computational models, those of Hans Braun and colleagues and those of my own group, which both aim at bridging gaps between different levels of neural systems. In particular, the constructive role of noise and chaos in such systems is modelled and related to functions, such as sensation, perception, learning/memory, decision making, and transitions between different (un-)conscious states. While there is, in general, a focus on upward causation, I will also discuss downward causation, where higher level activity may affect the activity at lower levels, which should be a condition for any functional role of consciousness and free will, often considered to be problematic to science.

Location-Aware Incentive Mechanism for Traffic Offloading in Heterogeneous Networks: A Stackelberg Game Approach.

This article investigates the traffic offloading problem in the heterogeneous network. The location of small cells is considered as an important factor in two aspects: the amount of resources they share for offloaded macrocell users and the performance enhancement they bring after offloading. A location-aware incentive mechanism is therefore designed to incentivize small cells to serve macrocell users. Instead of taking the amount of resources shared as the basis of the reward division, the performance promotion brought to the macro network is taken. Meanwhile, in order to ensure the superiority of small cell users, the significance of them weighs heavier than macrocell users instead of being treated equally. The offloading problem is formulated as a Stackelberg game where the macro cell base station is the leader and small cells are followers. The Stackelberg equilibrium of the game is proved to be existing and unique. It is also proved to be the optimum of the proposed problem. Simulation and numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Three Layer Macro Network Constraint Based Precision Planning of Middle Voltage Distribution Networks

Refined planning has become the key to improve the efficiency of power grid enterprises under the background of new electricity reform.Thus, a complete set of ideas and methods are proposed for the precise planning of medium voltage distribution networks based on three layer macro networks, in this paper. The three layer macro networks consist of channel networking, mesh networking and transformer networking, which reflect the top level determination of overall planninand and overall coordinatio

Enhanced Co-Primary Spectrum Sharing Method for Multi-Operator Networks

We consider a multi-operator small cell network where mobile network operators are sharing a common pool of radio resources. The goal is to ensure long term fairness of spectrum sharing without coordination among small cell base stations. It is assumed that spectral allocation of the small cells is orthogonal to the macro network layer, and thus, only the small cell traffic is modeled. We develop a decentralized control mechanism for base stations using the Gibbs sampling based learning technique, which allocates a suitable amount of spectrum for each base station. Five algorithms are compared addressing co-primary multi-operator resource sharing under heterogeneous traffic requirements and the performance is assessed through extensive system-level simulations. The main performance metrics are user throughput and fairness between operators. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed Gibbs sampling based learning algorithm provides about tenfold cell edge throughput gains compared to state-of-the-art algorithms, while ensuring fairness between operators.

Studi Akurasi Pengukuran GNSS Jaring Makro Tahun 2016 dan 2017 pada Pemantauan Bendungan Sermo

Monitoring of deformation on Sermo Dam has been widely practiced. One of them is by installing the monitoring point, locate dinside the Sermo Dam area called the micro network, and outside the dam called macro network. The installation of the micro network monitoring point aims to monitor the deformation of the dam due to the volume of water. The macro network monitoring point aims to monitor the effect of the existence of an active fault under the dam. In the last few years, monitoring in Sermo Dam has been done using GNSS technology. This paper intends to present the results of the accuracy represented by the deviation standard value of the measurement point at the macro net on the GNSS observation in 2016 and 2017. The objective is to compare the accuracy resulting from various GNSS processing strategies in observation 2016 and 2017, evaluation of GNSS measurements that can be used as guidance in subsequent GNSS measurements. The result shows that GNSS measurement in 2017 using two IGS reference points (BAKO and COCO) has a better standard deviation value compared to the 2016 measurement by the difference 1-5 mm on the X axis, 1-9 mm on the Y axis, and 1-2 mm on the Z axis. In the GNSS data processing using seven IGS reference points (BAKO, COCO, KARR, DARW, GUUG, PIMO, SHAO) in 2016 mostly has a better standard deviation compared to 2017 measurement except in MAK5 with the difference 0-4 mm on the X axis, 1-10 mm on Y axis, and 0-2 mm on Z axis. As for the value of coordinate data processing in 2016 and 2017on the two processing strategies there are differences in coordinate values that indicate the movement of monitoring points of macro network. However, the vector of the point movement that occurs in the two strategies has a different direction. This requires verification in-depth research and focused on the deformation of the Sermo Dam monitoring point.

Toward green 5G heterogeneous small-cell networks: power optimization using load balancing technique

The overwhelming demand for data by an ever-increasing number of users is a great challenge wireless cellular networks are faced with. One potential solution to this issue is deploying a massive number of small cells (SCs) in the existing macro network. As SC overlay has a big role in the future wireless networks that can overcome the data traffic upsurge at little power cost, heterogeneous network (HetNet) has been viewed as a promising technology for 5G networks that extends cell coverage, improves network capacity and offloads the network traffic from the macro cell (MC) to the SCs. However, the hyper-dense SCs and their uncorrelated operation raise an important question about the joint power consumption of the macro base station (MBS) and the small base stations (SBSs) in the HetNet since the aggregate power consumption of the dense SBSs cannot be ignored. Recently, the SC sleeping technique has become a hot topic for saving energy in HetNets. To minimize power consumption in HetNets, we propose three algorithms to dynamically adapt the operation of the SBSs to active/sleep (on/off) for non-uniform user distribution in the HetNet. We investigate the general optimal power minimization problem for HetNet that requires relatively high computational complexity. Taking into account the additional increase of the traffic load brought to the MBS, a key design principle of the proposed algorithms is to switch off the SBSs gradually based on their locations, user densities in their coverage areas or the highest power that can be saved by switching some of them off, respectively. Then, we enhance the mathematical framework to make the analysis more realistic by considering the offloading between the SCs and the MBS that occurs when the traffic load exceeds SCs’ capacity. In this paper, based on the fact that user densities of SCs and MC change with time, we model the traffic on the European traffic profile and portray the power consumption of the HetNet throughout the day. Simulation results show that by applying SC sleeping and our proposed algorithms, the HetNet can save about 20% power daily. The performances of our proposed algorithms are close to that of the optimal algorithm and their computational complexities are remarkably lower.

Outage Analysis of Offloading in Heterogeneous Networks: Composite Fading Channels

Small cells deployment is one of the most significant long-term strategic policies of the mobile network operators. In heterogeneous networks (HetNets), small cells serve as offloading spots in the radio access network to offload macro users (MUs) and their associated traffic from congested macrocells. In this paper, we perform analytical analysis and investigate how the radio propagation effects such as multipath and shadowing and small cell base station density affect MUs' offloading to small cell network (SCN). In particular, we exploit composite fading channels in our evaluation when an MU is offloaded to SCN with varying small and macro cell densities in the stochastic HetNets framework. We derive the expressions for outage probability (equivalently success probability) of the MU in macro network and SCN for two different cases, viz.: i) Nakagami-lognormal channel fading; ii) time-shared (combined) shadowed/unshadowed channel fading. We propose efficient approximations for the probability density functions of the channel fading (power) for the above-mentioned fading distributions that do not have closed-form expressions employing Gauss-Hermite integration and finite exponential series, respectively. Finally, the outage probability performance of MU with and without offloading options/services is analyzed for various settings of fading channels.

Unsettling lesbian motherhood: Critical reflections over a generation (1990–2015)

This article explores how advancements in equality rights combine with attitudinal changes in UK society and LGBTQ communities to impact on the experience of lesbian mothers over a generation. The author reflects on ordinary moments where sexuality and relationships become meaningful and situate emotions at the heart of analytical enquiry because it is through emotional interactions that micro–macro networks of relations intersect. Autobiography is combined with original data from empirical research to provide analytical entry points, which aims to advance understanding and also facilitate reflection on how we understand and come to know queer parenthood. Whilst there are now many routes into lesbian motherhood and the stigma of queer kinship is diminishing, this article demonstrates the need to problematize the prevailing narratives of coupledom that are emerging and tease apart the conflation of temporal progression, progressive rights and narratives of progress.

Game Strategy in Inter-firm Alliance

This paper examines the game strategy in inter-firm alliance by taking the telecommunication industry in China's central state-owned enterprises reform as an example. It uses the agent-based modeling and simulation method to establish a multi-agent simulation framework of game strategy through the complete modeling process of conceptual model, mathematical model and computer model. This paper builds a game mechanism considering firms' organizational differences in micro interaction level and whole emergence in macro network level, realizing the two-way feedback between micro interaction (game behavior) and macro emergence (network structure). On the basis of model establishment, this paper designs and runs a series of simulation experiments to investigate the effects of game parameters and network variables like decision-making personality, cooperation benefits and punitive measures on firm's choice of cooperate or betrayal strategy in inter-firm alliance. This paper provides some decision basis and policy references to optimize the effects of inter-firm alliance, and is a new attempt of simulation research in business strategy management.

Traffic guidance–perimeter control coupled method for the congestion in a macro network

Macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) describes the macro relationship between a network vehicle density and a network space mean flow, without requiring the mastery of complex origin to destination data. Thus, MFD provides an opportunity for the macro control of urban road network. However, most of the existing MFD control methods ignore the active role of traffic guidance in solving congestion problems. This study presents a traffic guidance–perimeter control coupled (TGPCC) method to improve the performance of macroscopic traffic networks. The method considers the optimal cumulative volume of a network as the goal and establishes a programming function according to the network equilibrium rule of traffic flow amongst multiple MFD sub-regions, which regards the minimum delay of network, as the objective. The Logit model for the compliance rate of driver route guidance is established by the stated preference survey. Moreover, the perimeter control (PC) method is proposed for adjusting the phase split of intersections. Finally, three schemes, namely, the TGPCC, PC and the method without PC and guidance are tested on a network with four well-defined MFD sub-regions. Results show that the TGPCC addresses the issue of congestion and decreases the total delay accordingly.

Destination eWOM: A macro and meso network approach?

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that describes the characteristics and the underlying drivers of publically shared electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) for destinations. Tweets about a destination were collected while the destination hosted a hallmark event over a 5-year period (2011–2015). In each year, interactions on Twitter were analysed using macro and meso-level social network analysis to identify the network structure and hubs of eWOM activity. A K means clustering algorithm was then applied to create clusters of nodes with similar characteristics and eWOM content within each cluster was analysed using automated content analysis. The resulting model indicates that destination and event eWOM maintains a macro network structure in which a small number of accounts or hubs influence information sharing. Hub characteristics evolve over time, whereas eWOM content can fluctuate in response to emergent destination activities.

Business Models for the Next Generation of Mobile Communications

The Next Generation of mobile network 5G, which will be based on a high-speed wireless broadband connection, could bring important changes to the way individuals and businesses employ telecommunications services and solve the issues related to the explosive growth in demand for mobile traffic, and the profitability decreasing of the mobile Broadband market. Therefore, the OMNs (Operator Mobile Networks) should plan for deploying 5G mobile network beyond 2020, which is the expected year for launching 5G. A business analysis study and mathematic modelling approach was considered. Also, a new pricing model is proposed to be consistent with the growth of mobile broadband. The results show that 5G is very beneficial, not only because of its lower cost compared with 4G LTE, but also due to the increment of average data consumptions offered by 5G mobile technologies and the increasing growth of number of users. We also found that good analysis of Price Elasticity of Volume (PED) gives an important margin of benefit. We confirm that the reuse of existing sites have a large impact on reducing costs when a denser macro network deployed. However, we encountered a lack of the limited capacity related to the macro sites and coverage limited with small cell solutions like femtocells, picocells deployed with 5G millimeter Wave system and Wi-Fi.

Dynamic evolution of government's public trust in online collective behaviour: a social computing approach

There is a dearth of research on why public trust in government rises and falls over time following online collective behaviours. For the problem of dynamic process and micro-macro evolution mechanism of this change in trust whenever it occurs over any specific campaign, in our research, a proposed social computing approach is employed to simulate the change of public trust in government on the basis of a heterogeneous network under three ideal network topologies including random network, scale-free network, and small world network. The results show the dynamics of a change in public trust of the government exhibited in online collective behaviour can be dependent on the interplay between the participants and event, where the former mainly occurs on a social network layer, and the latter on an information layer. This leads to a significantly integrated role between macro network driving effect and micro group convergence effect. Furthermore, several parameters have phase change phenomena in this process, while phase critical value and degree of impact vary from different network structures. The trigger contextual intensity is an important evolutionary power, and plays an integrated role in the evolution process of a shift in the public's trust of government.

Redes de colaboración académica: el caso de las coautorías de artículos presentados en la Conferencia Académica Permanente de Investigación Contable –Capic– (1993-2015)

En la actualidad, el fomento a la producción científica universitaria se centra en la creación de redes de colaboración. En este sentido, en el año 1990 se creó la sociedad científica Capic –Conferencia Académica Permanente de Investigación Contable–, institución que alberga, principalmente, a académicos adscritos a universidades chilenas, tanto públicas como privadas. Bajo este contexto, el propósito de esta investigación se relaciona con identificar en qué medida la participación de investigadores en la Capic, durante el período 1992-2015, ha generado redes de colaboración, así como identificar los principales atributos y las estructuras internas de dichas redes. Los hallazgos demuestran que la macro red generada durante dos décadas posee baja cohesión, con alta fragmentación, y un predominio del género masculino. Desde una perspectiva micro, el análisis de las ocho principales redes evidencia un predominio de ciertas universidades, siendo la micro red con mayor integrantes la configurada principalmente, por académicos de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.
 Además, se observa que posiciones relevantes en torno a la conexión y la cercanía con otros investigadores son asumidas por mujeres; aun cuando en la mayoría de las redes predomina el género masculino. Por último, otro resultado se asocia a la existencia de una micro red conectada internacionalmente, en concreto con investigadores de Colombia, Argentina, y Chile. Futuras investigaciones deben profundizar en identificar los capitales de las redes con la finalidad de visualizar y gestionar dichos recursos –económicos, intelectuales, culturales, sociales–; para fomentar la conectividad entre investigadores con intereses comunes, facilitando la localización de redes con ventajas estructurales que fomenten una mayor productividad entre los académicos que participan en la Capic.

Research on Evaluation Method of Hierarchical Network Security Threat

A bottom-up hierarchical network security threat transmission model has been proposed and weights of different levels as well as calculation method of each parameter have been offered to strengthen the real time of network management and evaluate network security situation accurately. Research results have shown that the adoption of the method in this paper can understand the security status of network system intuitively. It can be found out that the bigger security threat situation evaluation index of network system, the greater security risk within the system and the higher violation degree of security strategy within network system. The adoption of longer statistical data can provide change rule of macro network security threat situation for network management work and confirm the attack features and attack time of hacker. The adoption of smaller statistical analysis time window can provide change rule of micro network security threat situation and make it easy for network situation to make real-time supervision. At the same time, the combination of consumption rate of network resources can judge attack source and method more conveniently and quickly.

QoE-Based Flow Admission Control in Small Cell Networks

An important requirement on 5G mobile systems is to accommodate massive numbers of wireless devices and users. Heterogeneous networks are expected to play a crucial role in meeting this requirement. In this vein, small cells are expected to become an integral part of these heterogeneous networks. However, their success would not last longer unless they offer services at a quality similar to that currently ensured by the macro cellular networks. Mitigating congestion of the backhaul links to small cell networks is a crucial factor. With this regard, this paper proposes an admission control that makes decisions to redirect IP flows, fully or partially, to the macro or small cell networks, or to reject the incoming flows. The decision mechanism is based on predictions of users' Quality of Experience (QoE). It is modeled as a Markov decision process (MDP), whereby the aim is to derive the optimal policy (i.e. reject or accept flows in the macro or the small cell) that maximizes users' QoE. Through computer simulations, we evaluate the performance of the proposed admission control and compare it against a random policy decision. We also numerically illustrate its optimal policies in different scenarios under different traffic load conditions.

Adaptive behaviours of attacking futsal teams to opposition defensive formations

This study evaluated tendencies towards flexibility/stability of coordinated behaviours in international futsal teams, considered as complex collective systems, according to changes in opposition defensive formations. Six games of two international futsal teams (Spain and Portugal) were selected for Social Network Analysis to capture the coordination tendencies that emerge in the tactical behaviours of players when performing against different defensive formations. Ball trajectories in each offensive pattern of play were notated in an adjacency matrix where each entry accounted for the linkages between 12 spatial field areas. Each offensive play was coded according to the defensive formation of an opposing team (i.e. conservative or risky formation). Results revealed similar network properties between teams when competing against more risky defensive formations, while notable differences were observed against conservative defences. Effect of defensive formation of opponents on macro network properties was observed in both the Portuguese and Spanish teams. At a meso-level, only the Spanish national team exhibited notable changes, suggesting a greater level of adaptability to unfolding performance events. The observed flexibility in tactical behaviours of the Spanish team appeared to express their greater expertise levels.

A Q Learning and Fuzzy Q Learning Approach for Optimization of Interference Constellations in Femto–Macro Cellular Architecture in Downlink

The reduction in the cost and enhancement in the network coverage and capacity are the main objectives in the establishment of mobile networks. These objectives were the key force behind the idea of femtocells deployment. But, there are many technical issues for the femtocells deployment with already existing macro network. Cross-tier interference is one of the main challenge that must have to be resolved for smooth operation of macro---femto network. This paper gives self-optimizing and self-healing technique that utilizes Q-learning and fuzzy Q-learning algorithm for the objectives of enhancement in the network capacity and spectral efficiency. In our proposed scheme, each macro base station acts as an agent which interacts with its local environment (all the femtocells and mobile stations under its coverage area), gathers the information and takes the suitable actions correspondingly. For the objective of controlling cross-tier interference, macrousers are rescheduled in such an intelligent way that performance of the femtousers, located on the overlapped spectral portion, is not degraded. The simulation results confirm our proposed approach to improve the network capacity and spectral efficiency as well as sharp convergence, which designates its capability to meet the self organizing network requirements set by 3GPP.

Cluster-Based Resource Allocation for Spectrum-Sharing Femtocell Networks

Femtocells in two-tier femto-macro networks can enhance indoor coverage and improve overall network performance. Macro networks may share spectrum with overlaid femtocells so as to improve spectral efficiency. However, the deployment of femtocells also brings co-tier and cross-tier interferences, which will significantly degrade system performance. In order to solve this problem efficiently, we propose a distributed scheme to manage wireless resources in this heterogeneous networks. The feasible solution can be obtained by dividing the problem into two sub-problems. First, we propose a femtocells clustering scheme, which uses a mathematical modeling idea based on LINGO, an optimization software that can solve the joint clustering problem for the femtocell access points (FAPs). The proposed branch-and-bound algorithm and the simplex algorithm are used jointly to find the optimal solution by LINGO. The optimality of the proposed clustering algorithm is verified both theoretically and through simulations where the comparison with other algorithms is made. Second, a novel algorithm is proposed to allocate sub-channels to the femtocell users (FUEs). Compared with other related schemes, the proposed channel-allocation algorithm can reduce the interference more effectively and achieve higher data-rate fairness among FUEs. Specifically, according to the situation that the FUEs move in the room, the FUE mobility model is proposed to predict the change tendency of path loss values of the FUEs, which can guarantee the mobile service quality and improve system capacity effectively. Finally, the power of the FAPs is adjusted dynamically through setting the interference threshold to further improve the performance of the system.

Green Licensed-Shared Access

In this paper, we present a novel licensed-shared access (LSA) spectrum-sharing scheme as an energy efficient way to increase the spectral utility of a network. We consider a two-tier network where a small cell network offers offloading services to a macro network to improve its quality of service. In return, the small cells are rewarded for their cooperation with a number of licenses to operate in the spectrum owned by the macro network. The short link distances and diversity offered by the small cell network to offload the macro user help enhance the total spectral and energy utilization of the network. For effective functioning of the scheme, it is important to determine the division between the fraction of small cells that provide offloading services and those which obtain the licenses. In this paper, we present a comprehensive mathematical model of this LSA-based offloading and evaluate the optimal division between the offloading and licensing small cells. Our analysis shows that such spectrum sharing can lead to commendable gains in the spectral utilization of the network while assuring the desired quality of service for both macro and small network. An intelligent determination of the fraction of offloading small cell network results in efficient energy use for offloading. We test our scheme within the network parameters of the city of Leeds, U.K. Our results indicate that the spectral utility of Leeds can be improved by more than $12\times$ , and the energy efficiency by $16\times$ through our proposed scheme.