Network Providers Research Articles

CDN Slicing over a Multi-Domain Edge Cloud

We present an architecture for the provision of video Content Delivery Network (CDN) functionality as a service over a multi-domain cloud. We introduce the concept of a CDN slice, that is, a CDN service instance which is created upon a content provider's request, is autonomously managed, and spans multiple, potentially heterogeneous, edge cloud infrastructures. Our design is tailored to a 5G mobile network context, building on its inherent programmability, management flexibility, and the availability of cloud resources at the mobile edge level, thus close to end users. We exploit Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) technologies, proposing a system which is aligned with the recent NFV and MEC standards. To deliver a Quality-of-Experience (QoE) optimized video service, we derive empirical models of video QoE as a function of service workload, which, coupled with multi-level service monitoring, drive our slice resource allocation and elastic management mechanisms. These management schemes feature autonomic compute resource scaling, and on-the-fly transcoding to adapt video bit-rate to the current network conditions. Their effectiveness is demonstrated via testbed experiments.

PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS OF MARKETING OF FROZEN FISH IN KADUNA METROPOLIS, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

This study investigated the marketing of frozen fish in Kaduna metropolis, Kaduna state. Ten (10) markets were purposively selected due to high concentration of frozen fish marketers and the volume of trading activities; Primary data were generated through the use of structured questionnaire administered to hundred (100) randomly selected retailers and fifteen (15) purposively selected wholesalers. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistic, budgeting technique, net marketing and rate of return on capital invested. The result show that majority 80 percent and 53 of the retailers and wholesalers were female, Majority (70prcent) of the retailers had primary education but most of the wholesaler’s attained tertiary education. The frozen fish marketing channels identified in the area are made up of zero and multi stage channels. Furthermore, the cost and return analysis revealed that the wholesalers realized about N121, 000.00 naira while the retailers got N56, 000.00 naira per month while return to per capital invested (RPCI) was 11 kobo and 22 kobo per Naira invested for the wholesalers and the retailers respectively. This implies that the enterprise is profitable. Transportation difficulties and marketing charges ranked were major constraints confronting frozen fish marketers. It is recommended that provision of good roads network and formidable integrated marketing system will further improve the profitability of the enterprise in the study area.

Gewährleistung umweltverträglicher Mobilität für alle

The article deals with state responsibility for the provision of sustainable mobility for people and goods, which is available and affordable for everyone. The legal structure of that responsibility can be shaped based on a general legal theory of network-bound infrastructures that distinguishes between the provision of transport infrastructure network, the regulation of (public and private) transport services, and a general legal framework (technical safety, consumer protection, environmental requirements, etc.). The governmental responsibility for mobility is rooted in the German constitution and governed by constitutional rules aimed at protecting health, environment and climate. By analyzing the ways, the legislator and the executive branch follow their responsibilities, some general principles, means and instruments can be found. Among these the instrumental function and limited range of competition is crucial. “Modal split” and “multimodality” of mobility have to be managed by special means of distribution, transfer policy (shifting transport from the roads to the railways), and (digital) interconnectivity. In the light of this the article focusses on two challenges of Germany’s sustainable transport policy (Verkehrswende)—reorganization of railway transport by introducing a nationwide synchronized timetable, and reorganization of local mobility by new instruments of urban planning and interconnectivity.

Climate change events in the Bengali migration to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT The internal migration of Bengali people to the CHT since the 1970s has been a significant factor in the long-standing ethnopolitical conflict in this region. The prevailing view is that while poverty and environmental disasters were push factors in this migration, government settlement programmes were primarily responsible for this population shift. This article offers a fresh perspective on this historic migration by exploring its environmental causes. It shows through an analysis of a questionnaire survey and interviews with Bengali settlers in the CHT that climatic events such as floods, cyclones, and riverbank erosion contributed to the migration decisions of the majority of the respondents. Government protection and provision of land and social networks in the CHT were mediating factors that enabled Bengali migrants to settle permanently in the CHT. This insight challenges the conventional narrative that the settlement was primarily politically motivated and confirms that complex migration motivations cannot be reduced to single drivers.

Economic impacts of being close to subway networks: A case study of Korean metropolitan areas

Subway networks are often developed in densely populated metropolitan areas that have enough potential passengers to merit their operation. Once a network has been constructed, it provides mobility to passengers and improves local accessibility to various destinations, thereby having economic, social, and public health impacts. This study aims to examine the economic impacts of subway networks in metropolitan areas among the various, wide-ranging effects of provision of transit networks. The association between actual transaction prices of condominiums and accessibility to subway networks in four metropolitan areas in South Korea is examined. Condominiums make up the dominant housing type in South Korea, so they provide a valid proxy for housing prices. In the modeling process, factors known to have a close relationship with housing prices are integrated along with the accessibility of subway networks, and spatially lagged models are utilized to effectively deal with the spatial patterns. The results of this research show that the expected positive effects of transit accessibility exist in the majority of cases in metropolitan areas, though one metropolis was an exception. These findings enhance our understanding of the economic impacts of public transit systems in relatively small metropolitan areas with less complex subway systems.

Low-Latency and Fresh Content Provision in Information-Centric Vehicular Networks

In this paper, the content service provision of information-centric vehicular networks (ICVNs) is investigated from the aspect of mobile edge caching, considering the dynamic driving-related context information. To provide up-to-date information with low latency, two schemes are designed for cache update and content delivery at the roadside units (RSUs). The roadside unit centric (RSUC) scheme decouples cache update and content delivery through bandwidth splitting, where the cached content items are updated regularly in a round-robin manner. The request adaptive (ReA) scheme updates the cached content items upon user requests with certain probabilities. The performance of both proposed schemes are analyzed, whereby the average age of information (AoI) and service latency are derived in closed forms. Surprisingly, the AoI-latency trade-off does not always exist, and frequent cache update can degrade both performances. Thus, the RSUC and ReA schemes are further optimized to balance the AoI and latency. Extensive simulations are conducted on SUMO and OMNeT++ simulators, and the results show that the proposed schemes can reduce service latency by up to 80 percent while guaranteeing content freshness in heavily loaded ICVNs.

Path persistence in the cloud

A commonly held belief is that traffic engineering and routing changes are infrequent. However, based on our measurements over a number of years of traffic between data centers in one of the largest cloud provider's networks, we found that it is common for flows to change paths at ten-second intervals or even faster. These frequent path and, consequently, latency variations can negatively impact the performance of cloud applications, specifically, latency-sensitive and geo-distributed applications. Our recent measurements and analysis focused on observing path changes and latency variations between different Amazon aws regions. To this end, we devised a path change detector that we validated using both ad hoc experiments and feedback from cloud networking experts. The results provide three main insights: (1) Traffic Engineering (TE) frequently moves (TCP and UDP) flows among network paths of different latency, (2) Flows experience unfair performance, where a subset of flows between two machines can suffer large latency penalties (up to 32% at the 95th percentile) or excessive number of latency changes, and (3) Tenants may have incentives to selfishly move traffic to low latency classes (to boost the performance of their applications). We showcase this third insight with an example using rsync synchronization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to reveal the high frequency of TE activity within a large cloud provider's network. Based on these observations, we expect our paper to spur discussions and future research on how cloud providers and their tenants can ultimately reconcile their independent and possibly conflicting objectives. Our data is publicly available for reproducibility and further analysis at http://goo.gl/25BKte.

Assessing Resilience of Urban Critical Infrastructure Networks: A Case Study of Ahvaz, Iran

Cities around the world increasingly recognize the need to build on their resilience to deal with the converging forces of urbanization and climate change. Given the significance of critical infrastructure for maintaining quality of life in cities, improving their resilience is of high importance to planners and policy makers. The main purpose of this study is to spatially analyze the resilience of water, electricity, and gas critical infrastructure networks in Ahvaz, a major Iranian city that has been hit by various disastrous events over the past few years. Towards this goal, we first conducted a two-round Delphi survey to identify criteria that can be used for determining resilience of critical infrastructure networks across different parts of the city. The selected criteria that were used for spatial analysis are related to the physical texture, the design pattern, and the scale of service provision of the critical infrastructure networks. Results showed that, overall, critical infrastructure networks in Ahvaz do not perform well against the measurement criteria. This is specially the case in Regions 1, 2, 4, and 6, which are characterized by issues such as old and centralized infrastructure networks and high levels of population density. The study highlights the need to make improvements in terms of the robustness, redundancy, and flexibility of the critical infrastructure networks in the city.

Psychological aspects of effective strategic partnership management

Strategic partnerships that were formed since the end of the last century, as effective business elements of integration of the economic world, are now the most promising form of business development. They allow us to overcome the negative aspects of forced growth and consolidation, leave partners room to choose the best solutions, focus on the future, and increase the stability of partner companies in providing resources and distributing products and services. Today, such partnerships have become an important tool of competition, opening up opportunities to enter new markets. According to the structure, a strategic partnership can combine numerous organizational forms, including joint ventures, license agreements, long-term contracts for the supply and purchase of products, j oint research and development programs, and mutual provision of implementation networks. Strategic partnership management is a very complex, specific activity and area of corporate management in which it is extremely important to maintain a balance between the interests of the alliance as a whole, the interests of the company and the interests of the partner company, taking into account the interests of shareholders, strategic investors and other interested parties. Specific examples of strategic alliances, the dynamics of their development, and the reasons for their success or failure have been considered in the article. It has been demonstrated that a serious obstacle to effective corporate cooperation has mainly psychological than economic reasons. The concept of the psychological syndrome of strategic partnership has been proposed, its content and structure, including individual, organizational and cultural components, have been revealed. The ways to overcome this syndrome, including the creation and training of a strategic partnership team, have been briefly outlined. For a detailed description and evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed psychotechnology of organizational development, a separate article will be required, which we plan to present in one of the next issues.

A MapReduce Approach for Traffic Matrix Estimation in SDN

A traffic matrix (TM) is a source of critical traffic throughput information for traffic engineering activities and network management tasks such as traffic prediction, capacity planning, network provisioning, and anomaly detection. However, estimating TM poses several challenges for network engineers. One of the challenges is that traffic data statistics are constantly changing, and their aggregation for real-time monitoring becomes a difficult task. This paper presents a near real-time TM estimation approach for OpenFlow (OF) networks. It makes use of Big Data techniques based on MapReduce operations to tackle the aggregation problem. The proposed method uses traffic data statistics collected from OF switches through an SDN controller as input and aggregates these data in a Big Data streaming processing environment. This paper explores the benefits of the distributed MapReduce computing model to provide an estimate of the TM for all origin-destination (OD) pairs of hosts in the network in two ways: 1) the accumulated throughput and 2) the throughput between two sequential TM estimates. This procedure enables network engineers to monitor the behavior and evolution of the throughput on each OD pair in the network and on each link in the path between each OD pair. The generated TM is persisted in a NoSQL database and can be made available for a variety of network traffic monitoring applications. The results of the simulations show the potential of the proposed MapReduce approach for TM estimation.

Market infrastructure: elements and significance in a market economy

Peculiarities of market infrastructure formation in Ukraine are studied. The genesis of the formation of the economic category "infrastructure" is considered, its main functions and role in the socio-economic development of society are determined. The paper substantiates that the market infrastructure should be considered as a set of objects and institutional structures that ensure the formation of material, financial, and information links between market participants. The complexity of the market infrastructure as a system is due to the variety of functions performed by its constituent elements. We can distinguish financial and credit, organizational, technical, and information subsystems. The interaction of elements of market infrastructure will ensure maximum efficiency and timely implementation of any programs and activities aimed at creating a competitive market environment. The shortcomings that hinder the efficient development and functioning of market infrastructure are identified, namely: lack of a regulated system of interaction between existing market infrastructure actors, insufficient innovation activity of research institutions, low perception of innovations by manufacturing enterprises, and weak provision of infrastructure network with human resources. The paper argues that the methodological approach to market infrastructure research should be based on the assessment of the existing market infrastructure, analysis of strategic directions of socio-economic development of the territory (medium and long term), taking into account the interests and needs of market participants, forecasting, identifying opportunities and risks related to the development of market infrastructure facilities, including the definition of priority areas and measures, implementation of programs and projects for the development of these facilities, and monitoring the implementation of planned measures for market infrastructure. The assessment of the existing level of market infrastructure development should be carried out in order to identify the potential additional opportunities related to market development, increase its competitiveness, and take into account the interests of market participants.

Optimal Access Scheme for Security Provisioning of C-V2X Computation Offloading Network With Imperfect CSI

In a cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) enabled computation-offloading network, vehicular users may deliver computation tasks to a cellular base station (BS) through vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) transmission links in order to accommodate computation-intensive applications, where the BS is usually equipped with a mobile edge computing (MEC) server. However, due to the broadcast nature of wireless communications and high-mobility of vehicles, the computation-offloading information may suffer from an eavesdropping threat. In practice, the interference generated by device-to-device-based V2V (D2D-V) links can be utilized for protecting the offloading information against eavesdropping. This observation motivates a security provisioning for C-V2X computation-offloading network. Specifically, a dynamic threshold-based access scheme is required to maintain the interference under control for different channel conditions. Unfortunately, the previous studies that are based on the assumption of perfect channel state information (CSI) can not be applied for the dynamic vehicular networks. In this paper, we propose a dynamic threshold-based access scheme for security provisioning of C-V2X computation-offloading network by considering an imperfect CSI. In this scheme, an optimized access threshold is set to update adaptively in terms of channel estimation error for balancing both the security and reliability of the offloading link. Furthermore, the proposed scheme can maximize the secrecy throughput under a connection outage constraint of the D2D-V links, with the total area spectral efficiency optimized under the security performance criterion for the offloading link. Numerical results are provided for validating the proposed theoretical analysis. A useful design insight is provided for attaining an optimal configuration of C-V2X computation-offloading network.

Artificial Intelligence for Smart Renewable Energy Sector in Europe—Smart Energy Infrastructures for Next Generation Smart Cities

One of the most challenging areas of Future Smart Cities Research is the Smart Energy domain. Critical issues related to optimization, provision of smart customizable networks and sophisticated computational techniques and methods enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning need further investigation. The renewable energy (RE) is a powerful resource for the future global development in the context of climate change and resources depletion. Artificial intelligence (AI) implies new rules of organizing the activities in order to respond to these new requirements. It is necessary to improve the design of the energy infrastructure, the deployment and production of RE in order to face the multiple challenges that will affect the sector’s growth and resilience.. In this research work we exploit the recent developments on the AI adoption for RE sector in European Union (EU). In this respect, we analysed (i) the efficiency of the transformation processes of the RE within the energy chain from Gross Inland Consumption to Final Energy Consumption, (ii) its implications on the structure of renewable energy by source (solar, wind, biomass etc.), (iii) the labour productivity in RE sector compared to the economy as a whole and its correlation with investments level, (iv) the implication of the adoption of AI for RE towards Future Smart Cities Research. The main contribution of this research is the development of a framework for understanding the contribution of AI in the RE sector in Europe. Another bold contribution of this work is the discussion of the implications for Future Smart Cities Research and future research directions.

An ensemble dynamic optimization based inverse adaptive heuristic critic in IaaS cloud computing for resource allocation

In the recent years increase in computer and mobile user’s, data storage has become a priority in all fields. Large- and Small-Scale businesses today thrive on their data and they spent a huge amount of money to maintain this data. Cloud Storage provides on– demand availability of IT services via Large Distributed Data Centers over High Speed Networks. Network Virtualization is been considered as a recent proliferation in cloud computing which emerges as a Multifaceted method towards future internet by facilitating shared resources. Provisioning of the Virtual Network is considered to be a major challenge in terms of creating NP hard problems, minimization of workflow processing time under control resource etc. In order to cope up with the challenges our work has proposed an Ensemble Dynamic Optimization based on Inverse Adaptive Heuristic Critic (IAHC) for overcoming the virtual network provisioning in cloud computing. Our approach gets observed from Expert Observation and provides an approximate solution when various workflows arrives online at various Window Time (WT). It also provides an Optimal Policy for predicting the effect of Resource Allocation of one task for Present as well as Future time Windows. In order to the above approaches it also avoids the high sample complexity and maintains the cost while scaling up to provide Resource Provision. Therefore, our work achieves an adequate policy towards Resource Allocation, reduces the Cost as well as Energy Consumption and deals with real time uncertainties to avoid the Virtual Network provisioning.

Optimization of Multitenant Radio Admission Control Through a Semi-Markov Decision Process

Network slicing in future 5G systems enables the provision of multitenant networks in which a network infrastructure owned by an operator is shared among different tenants, such as mobile virtual operators, over-the-top providers or vertical market players. The support of network slicing within the radio access network requires the introduction of appropriate radio resource management functions to ensure that each tenant gets the required radio resources in accordance with the expected service level agreement (SLA). This paper addresses radio admission control (RAC) functionality in multiservice and multitenant scenarios as a mechanism for regulating the acceptance of new guaranteed bit rate service requests of different tenants. This paper proposes an optimization framework that models the RAC as a semi-Markov decision process and, as a result, derives an optimal decision-making policy that maximizes an average long-term function representing the desired optimization target. A reward function is proposed to capture the degree of tenant satisfaction with the received service in relation to the expected SLA, accounting for both the provision of excess capacity beyond the SLA and the cost associated with sporadic SLA breaches. The proposed approach is evaluated by means of simulations, and its superiority to other reference schemes in terms of reward and other key performance indicators is analyzed.

SNR-availability-based optical network provisioning

We review recently proposed metrics, Q availability and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) availability, based on statistical performance of optical signals, for modulation format assignment in network provisioning. These metrics assign a modulation format aiming to maximize spectral efficiency while satisfying the specified service availability. Q availability is suitable for tunable modulations with a discrete data rate based on M-ary quadrature amplitude modulations (mQAMs), while SNR availability is more suitable for fine-tunable modulations such as time-domain hybrid mQAM or a probabilistically shaped signal as well as discrete mQAMs. We also present a new guideline, to the best of our knowledge, on how to estimate network capacity without full network simulations when fine-tunable modulations are provisioned using SNR availability. We apply this guideline on three different network topologies and show 18.7% to 35.7% capacity gains with probabilistically shaped signal over mQAMs. SNR availability serves as a useful metric for provisioning in future optical networks adopting fine-tunable modulations.

PCV105 A SCOPING REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL MODELS OF ADULT SPECIALIST CARDIAC NETWORKS

Services for cardiac conditions such as acute coronary syndrome (ACS) can be organised into specialist cardiac networks. Although these networks have been shown to improve the quality of care, it is unclear how they are organised in practice. The aim of this scoping review was to identify and describe these models of specialist cardiac networks thereby informing the work of the National Review of Specialist Cardiac Services in Ireland. A scoping review of models of specialist cardiac networks located in EU or high-income countries was undertaken, for the period 01/01/2008 to 13/03/2019. The focus of the scoping review was adult specialist cardiac networks that were hospital-/cardiologist-led, managed and hierarchical. A narrative synthesis was conducted. Eighty-two specialist cardiac networks (ACS-related [n=75]; non ACS-related [n=7]) were identified, located across 21 countries. A key feature of networks was the use of clinical audit to assess performance and inform quality improvement. In the 75 ACS-related networks, ‘hub and spoke’ models featured prominently; at least 55 (73%) ACS networks offered a 24/7 service; the maximum distance between a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) centre and a non-PCI centre within a network ranged from 11km to 430km, averaging 113km; and the population served per 24/7 PCI centre ranged from 120,000 to 2.5 million inhabitants, averaging 758,000 inhabitants. In general, increased efficiencies associated with the establishment of the ACS-related networks were reported, both in terms of improvements in time-to-treatment and the proportion of patients receiving primary PCI. There was limited evidence regarding the structure, organisation or efficiencies of networks for non-ACS cardiac conditions. Certain commonalities were found across specialist cardiac networks in particular the use of clinical audit; however, important organisational differences were observed. Efficiencies were noted as a result of the networked provision of care. These findings have implications for the configuration of adult cardiac services.

Review of external referrals to a regional stroke centre: it is not just about thrombectomy

To determine the experience of a regional stroke referral centre of external referrals for endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) in patients with symptoms of acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) and large vessel occlusion (LVO). Data were collected prospectively over two 4-month periods (2017-2018) on consecutive external referrals for EVT. Baseline demographics, imaging findings, and key time parameters were recorded. Reasons for not transferring patients and for not performing EVT were recorded. Key time intervals were calculated and compared between the transferred and non-transferred group with and without intracranial occlusion and between the transferred patients who underwent thrombectomy and those who did not. Two hundred and sixty-two patients were referred. Sixty-one percent (n=159) were accepted and transferred for treatment. Of those transferred, 86% (n=136) had EVT. Fourteen percent (n=23) were unsuitable for EVT on arrival due to no vessel occlusion (48% n=11), poor Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS)/established infarct (30%, n=7) haemorrhage (9%, n=2), and clinical recovery (13% n=3). One hundred and three patients (39%) were ineligible for EVT following phone discussion due to absence of intracranial occlusion (59%, n=61), low ASPECTS (22%, n=23), distal occlusion (4%, n=4), low/improving National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS; 10.7%, n=11), and poor modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at baseline (3%, n=3). Patients with LVO but not transferred had longer onset to hospital arrival time compared with those transferred 151.5 versus 91 minutes (p<0.005), with a trend also toward a longer door to CT/CTA 40 minutes versus 30 minutes (p=0.142). These data provide valuable insights into the service provision of a comprehensive stroke network. The present rates of EVT and futile transfers are modest compared to published data. Access to neuroradiology and specialised stroke assessment is crucial to optimise time to treatment.

Características das redes sociais de pessoas idosas em Portugal

Este estudo descreve as redes sociais pessoais de idosos em Portugal, nas suas características estruturais, funcionais e relacionais-contextuais. Participaram 612 idosos com 65+ anos de idade (M = 76; DP = 7,6), na sua maioria mulheres (63%), com filhos (88,2%), e que não vivem sós (78,8%). Estruturalmente as redes apresentam um tamanho médio para a faixa etária (M = 7,9), são centradas nas relações familiares e muito coesas. São compostas dominantemente por laços familiares (76%), seguindo-se os laços de amizade (13%) e os de vizinhança (8%). Funcionalmente são percebidas como suportativas e recíprocas, associando-se aos laços familiares níveis mais elevados de suporte emocional, tangível e informativo (p &lt; 0,01). Relacional-contextualmente são estáveis temporalmente, heterogéneas quanto ao sexo e ao grupo etário. A frequência de contactos é plurisemanal e há proximidade geográfica com os membros da rede, vivendo mais próximos e tendo contactos mais frequentes com membros extrafamiliares (p &lt; 0,01; p &lt; 0,05). O perfil das redes sociais pessoais tem interesse epidemiológico para profissionais e atores que interferem organizacional e politicamente na intervenção com população idosa, para compreenderem as condições de provisão social das redes informais e equacionarem a promoção do bem-estar individual e social desta população.

IMPROVED SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORK ROUTING FOR TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORKS

The rapid advancements in the telecommunication networks, has led to the day by day progress in the data communication leading to the inclusion of many devices that causes complexities in managing and the maintaining of the networks. The outgrowing number of new network devices makes the traditional telecommunication networks incompatible to their flexible operation and the management. So the trending software defined networking can be opted for the provision of more convenient service providing a seamless communication, but the SDN’s lags in the self-adaptability and the efficient usage of the resources as it uses the concept of the traditional networks so the paper proposes an modified method of software defined networking based on the deep learning to enhance the performance, of the telecommunication networks. Further the evaluation of the telecommunication network routing with the improvised SDN, on the packet loss rate and the average delay shows that the proposed method is compatible for the seamless information provision of the nowadays telecommunication networks.