Trade-off in Optimizing Energy Consumption and End User Quality of Experience in Radio Access Network

To reduce network access latency, network traffic volume and server load, caching capacity has been proposed as a component of evolved Node B(e Node B) in the ratio access network(RAN). These e Node B caches reduce transport energy consumption but lead to additional energy cost by equipping every e Node B with caching capacity. Existing researches focus on how to minimize total energy consumption, but often ignore the trade-off between energy efficiency and end user quality of experience, which may lead to undesired network performance degradation. In this paper, for the first time, we build an energy model to formulate the problem of minimizing total energy consumption at e Node B caches by taking a trade-off between energy efficiency and end user quality of experience. Through coordinating all the e Node B caches in the same RAN, the proposed model can take a good balance between caching energy and transport energy consumption while also guarantee end user quality of experience. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. Compared with the existing works, our proposal significantly reduces the energy consumption by approximately 17% while keeps superior end user quality of experience performance.

Qo E-based resource allocation protocols in cognitive OFDMA network with hybrid model

A resource allocation protocol is presented in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access （OFDMA） cognitive radio （CR） network with a hybrid model which combines overlay and underlay models. Without disrupting the primary user （PU） transmissions, the overlay model allows the secondary user （SU） to utilize opportunistically the idle sub-channels; the underlay model allows the SU to occupy the same sub-channels with PU. The proposed protocols are designed for maximizing the quality of experience （QoE） of CR users and switching dynamically between the overlay and underlay models. QoE is measured by the mean opinion score （MOS） rather than simply fulfilling the physical and medium access control （MAC） layer requirements. The simulations considering the file transfer and video stream services show that the proposed resource allocation strategy is spectrum efficient.

Participatory approach to design social accountability interventions to improve maternal health services:a case study from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Background:Social accountability(SA)comprises a set of mechanisms aiming to,on the one hand,enable users to raise their concerns about the health services provided to them(voice),and to hold health providers(HPs)accountable for actions and decisions related to the health service provision.On the other hand,they aim to facilitate HPs to take into account users’needs and expectations in providing care.This article describes the development of a SA intervention that aims to improve health services responsiveness in two health zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Methods:Beneficiaries including men,women,community health workers(CHWs),representatives of the health sector and local authorities were purposively selected and involved in an advisory process using the Dialogue Model in the two health zones:(1)Eight focus group discussions(FGDs)were organized separately during consultation aimed at sharing and discussing results from the situation analysis,and collecting suggestions for improvement,(2)Representatives of participants in previous FGDs were involved in dialogue meetings for prioritizing and integrating suggestions from FGDs,and(3)the integrated suggestions were discussed by research partners and set as intervention components.All the processes were audio-taped,transcribed and analysed using inductive content analysis.Results:Overall there were 121 participants involved in the process,51 were female.They provided 48 suggestions.Their suggestions were integrated into six intervention components during dialogue meetings:(1)use CHWs and a health committee for collecting and transmitting community concerns about health services,(2)build the capacity of the community in terms of knowledge and information,(3)involve community leaders through dialogue meetings,(4)improve the attitude of HPs towards voice and the management of voice at health facility level,(5)involve the health service supervisors in community participation and;(6)use other existing interventions.These components were then articulated into three intervention components during programming to:create a formal voice system,introduce dialogue meetings improving enforceability and answerability,and enhance the health providers’responsiveness.Conclusions:The use of the Dialogue Model,a participatory process,allowed beneficiaries to be involved with other community stakeholders having different perspectives and types of knowledge in an advisory process and to articulate their suggestions on a combination of SA intervention components,specific for the two health zones contexts.