An SDN/NFV Based Framework for Management and Deployment of Service Based 5G Core Network

The traffic explosion and the rising of diverse requirements lead to many challenges for traditional mobile network architecture on flexibility, scalability, and deployability. To meet new requirements in the 5 G era, service based architecture is introduced into mobile networks. The monolithic network elements(e.g., MME, PGW, etc.) are split into smaller network functions to provide customized services. However, the management and deployment of network functions in service based 5 G core network are still big challenges. In this paper, we propose a novel management architecture for 5 G service based core network based on NFV and SDN. Combined with SDN, NFV and edge computing, the proposed framework can provide distributed and on-demand deployment of network functions, service guaranteed network slicing, flexible orchestration of network functions and optimal workload allocation. Simulations are conducted to show that the proposed framework and algorithm are effective in terms of reducing network operating cost.

What to Cache：Differentiated Caching Resource Allocation and Management in Information-Centric Networking

Information-centric networking(ICN) aims to improve the efficiency of content delivery and reduce the redundancy of data transmission by caching contents in network nodes. An important issue is to design caching methods with better cache hit rate and achieve allocating on-demand. Therefore, an in-network caching scheduling scheme for ICN was designed, distinguishing different kinds of contents and dynamically allocating the cache size on-demand. First discussing what was appropriated to be cached in nodes, and then a classification about the contents could be cached was proposed. Furthermore, we used AHP to weight different contents classes through analyzing users' behavior. And a distributed control process was built, to achieve differentiated caching resource allocation and management. The designed scheme not only avoids the waste of caching resource, but also further enhances the cache availability. Finally, the simulation results are illustrated to show that our method has the superior performance in the aspects of server hit rate and convergence.

Resource Allocation and User Association for HTTP Adaptive Streaming in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks with Small Cells

Video streaming,especially hypertext transfer protocol based(HTTP) adaptive streaming(HAS) of video,has been expected to be a dominant application over mobile networks in the near future,which brings huge challenge for the mobile networks.Although some works have been done for video streaming delivery in heterogeneous cellular networks,most of them focus on the video streaming scheduling or the caching strategy design.The problem of joint user association and rate allocation to maximize the system utility while satisfying the requirement of the quality of experience of users is largely ignored.In this paper,the problem of joint user association and rate allocation for HTTP adaptive streaming in heterogeneous cellular networks is studied,we model the optimization problem as a mixed integer programming problem.And to reduce the computational complexity,an optimal rate allocation using the Lagrangian dual method under the assumption of knowing user association for BSs is first solved.Then we use the many-to-one matching model to analyze the user association problem,and the joint user association and rate allocation based on the distributed greedy matching algorithm is proposed.Finally,extensive simulation results are illustrated to demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme.

Intelligent Resources Management System Design in Information Centric Networking

Information centric networking(ICN) is a new network architecture that is centred on accessing content. It aims to solve some of the problems associated with IP networks, increasing content distribution capability and improving users' experience. To analyse the requests' patterns and fully utilize the universal cached contents, a novel intelligent resources management system is proposed, which enables effi cient cache resource allocation in real time, based on changing user demand patterns. The system is composed of two parts. The fi rst part is a fi ne-grain traffi c estimation algorithm called Temporal Poisson traffi c prediction(TP2) that aims at analysing the traffi c pattern(or aggregated user requests' demands) for different contents. The second part is a collaborative cache placement algorithm that is based on traffic estimated by TP2. The experimental results show that TP2 has better performance than other comparable traffi c prediction algorithms and the proposed intelligent system can increase the utilization of cache resources and improve the network capacity.

Decoupled Delay and Bandwidth Centralized Queue-Based QoS Scheme in OpenFlow Networks

There are an increasing of scenarios that require the independent bandwidth and delay demands. For instance, in a data center, the interactive message would not occupy much bandwidth, but it requires the rigorous demands for the delay. However, the existing QoS approaches are mainly bandwidth based, which are inappropriate for these scenarios. Hence, we propose the decoupled scheme in the OpenFlow networks to provide the centralized differential bandwidth and delay control. We leverage the mature HTB to manage the bandwidth. And we design the Queue Delay Management Scheme (QDMS) for queuing delay arrangement, as well as the Comprehensive Parameters based Dijkstra Route algorithm (CPDR) for the propagation delay control. The evaluation results verify the decoupling effectiveness. And the decoupled scheme can reduce the delay for high priority flows.

Selective transmission and channel estimation in massive MIMO systems

Massive MIMO systems have got extraordinary spectral efficiency using a large number of base station antennas,but it is in the challenge of pilot contamination using the aligned pilots.To address this issue,a selective transmission is proposed using time-shifted pilots with cell grouping,where the strong interfering users in downlink transmission cells are temporally stopped during the pilots transmission in uplink cells.Based on the spatial characteristics of physical channel models,the strong interfering users are selected to minimize the inter-cell interference and the cell grouping is designed to have less temporally stopped users within a smaller area.Furthermore,a Kalman estimator is proposed to reduce the unexpected effect of residual interferences in channel estimation,which exploits both the spatial-time correlation of channels and the share of the interference information.The numerical results show that our scheme significantly improves the channel estimation accuracy and the data rates.

Adaptive Controller Placement in Software Defined Wireless Networks

Controller placement problem(CPP)is a critical issue in software defined wireless networks(SDWN).Due to the limited power of wireless devices,CPP is facing the challenge of energy efficiency in SDWN.Nevertheless,the related research on CPP in SDWN hasn’t modeled the energy consumption of controllers so far.To prolong the lifetime of SDWN and improve the practicability of research,we rebuilt a CPP model considering the minimal transmitted power of controllers.An adaptive controller placement algorithm(ACPA)is proposed with the following two stages.First,data field method is adopted to determine sub-networks for different network topologies.Second,for each sub-network we adopt an exhaustive method to find the optimal location which meets the minimal average transmitted power to place controller.Compared with the other algorithms,the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme are validated through simulation.

A cooperative user selection scheme based on energy efficiency and interference factor in cooperative communication systems

With the rapid development of green communications,energy consumption issue plays more and more important role in cooperative communication strategies and communication systems.Based on cooperative transmission model,a cooperative user selection scheme is proposed in consideration of both energy efficiency and interference factor.With the proposed scheme,the selected cooperative user consumes less energy and receives less interference.Furthermore,the main factor is analyzed to affect system performance,including signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)of source user and cooperative user,distance between source user and cooperative user or base station(BS),and fading factor in the transmission model.Through the proposed scheme,energy consumption and influence of interference are jointly taken into account during the cooperative user selection process.Besides,bit error rate(BER)in proposed scheme is also superior to existing schemes.Simulation results are presented to show the performance improvement of the proposed scheme.

Model Free Adaptive Predictive Control of Desulfurization Slurry pH Based on CPS Framework

In order to improve the slurry pH control accuracy of the absorption tower in the wet flue gas desulfurization process,a model free adaptive predictive control algorithm for the desulfurization slurry pH which is based on a cyber physical systems framework is proposed.First,aiming to address system characteristics of non-linearity and pure hysteresis in slurry pH change process,a model free adaptive predictive control algorithm based on compact form dynamic linearization is proposed by combining model free adaptive control algorithm with model predictive control algorithm.Then,by integrating information resources with the physical resources in the absorption tower slurry pH control process,an absorption tower slurry pH optimization control system based on cyber physical systems is constructed.It is turned out that the model free adaptive predictive control algorithm under the framework of the cyber physical systems can effectively realize the high-precision tracking control of the slurry pH of the absorption tower,and it has strong robustness.

Jointly optimized congestion control, forwarding strategy,and link scheduling in a named-data multihop wireless network

As a promising future network architecture, named data networking(NDN) has been widely considered as a very appropriate network protocol for the multihop wireless network(MWN). In named-data MWNs, congestion control is a critical issue. Independent optimization for congestion control may cause severe performance degradation if it can not cooperate well with protocols in other layers. Cross-layer congestion control is a potential method to enhance performance. There have been many cross-layer congestion control mechanisms for MWN with Internet Protocol(IP). However, these cross-layer mechanisms for MWNs with IP are not applicable to named-data MWNs because the communication characteristics of NDN are different from those of IP. In this paper, we study the joint congestion control, forwarding strategy, and link scheduling problem for named-data MWNs. The problem is modeled as a network utility maximization(NUM) problem. Based on the approximate subgradient algorithm, we propose an algorithm called ‘jointly optimized congestion control, forwarding strategy, and link scheduling(JOCFS)'to solve the NUM problem distributively and iteratively. To the best of our knowledge, our proposal is the first cross-layer congestion control mechanism for named-data MWNs. By comparison with the existing congestion control mechanism, JOCFS can achieve a better performance in terms of network throughput, fairness, and the pending interest table(PIT) size.

A survey of autoencoder-based recommender systems

In the past decade,recommender systems have been widely used to provide users with personalized products and services.However,most traditional recommender systems are still facing a challenge in dealing with the huge volume,complexity,and dynamics of information.To tackle this challenge,many studies have been conducted to improve recommender system by integrating deep learning techniques.As an unsupervised deep learning method,autoencoder has been widely used for its excellent performance in data dimensionality reduction,feature extraction,and data reconstruction.Meanwhile,recent researches have shown the high efficiency of autoencoder in information retrieval and recommendation tasks.Applying autoencoder on recommender systems would improve the quality of recommendations due to its better understanding of users,demands and characteristics of items.This paper reviews the recent researches on autoencoder-based recommender systems.The differences between autoencoder-based recommender systems and traditional recommender systems are presented in this paper.At last,some potential research directions of autoencoder-based recommender systems are discussed.

Applying Deep Learning to Individual and Community Health Monitoring Data:A Survey

In the recent years, deep learning models have addressed many problems in various fields. Meanwhile, technology development has spawned the big data in healthcare rapidly. Nowadays, application of deep learning to solve the problems in healthcare is a hot research direction. This paper introduces the application of deep learning in healthcare extensively. We focus on 7 application areas of deep learning, which are electronic health records （EHR）, electrocardiography （ECG）, electroencephalogram （EEG）, community healthcare, data from wearable devices, drug analysis and genomics analysis. The scope of this paper does not cover medical image processing since other researchers have already substantially reviewed it. In addition, we analyze the merits and drawbacks of the existing works, analyze the existing challenges, and discuss future trends.

Caching resource sharing in radio access networks： a game theoretic approach

Deployment of caching in wireless networks has been considered an effective method to cope with the challenge brought on by the explosive wireless traffic. Although some research has been conducted on caching in cellular networks, most of the previous works have focused on performance optimization for content caching. To the best of our knowledge, the problem of caching resource sharing for multiple service provider servers （SPSs） has been largely ignored. In this paper, by assuming that the caching capability is deployed in the base station of a radio access network, we consider the problem of caching resource sharing for multiple SPSs competing for the caching space. We formulate this problem as an oligopoly market model and use a dynamic non-cooperative game to obtain the optimal amount of caching space needed by the SPSs. In the dynamic game, the SPSs gradually and iteratively adjust their strategies based on their previous strategies and the information given by the base station. Then through rigorous mathematical analysis, the Nash equilibrium and stability condition of the dynamic game are proven. Finally, simulation results are presented to show the performance of the proposed dynamic caching resource allocation scheme.

Experimental study on the new type of electrical storage heater based on flat micro-heat pipe arrays

A new type of electrical storage heater that utilizes latent heat storage and flat micro-heat pipe arrays （FMHPAs） was developed. The thermal characteristics of the heater were tested through experimentation. The structure and operating principle of the storage heater were expounded. Three rows of FMHPAs were applied （three rows with five assemblies each） with a mass of 28 kg of phase change material （PCM） in the heat storage tank. Electric power was supplied to the PCM in the range of 0.2-2.04 kW, and air was used as heat transfer fluid, with the volume flow rate ranging from 40-120 m3/h. The inlet temperature was in the range of 15-24~C. The effects of heating power, air volume flow rate, and inlet temperature were investigated. The electrical storage heater exhibited efficiencies of 97% and 87% with 1.98 and 1.30 kW of power during charging and discharging, respectively. Application of the proposed storage heater can transfer electricity from peak periods to off-peak periods, and the excess energy generated by wind farms can be stored as heat and released when needed. Good economic and environmental benefits can be obtained.

FlowTrace： measuring round-trip time and tracing path in software-defined networking with low communication overhead

：In today＇s networks, load balancing and priority queues in switches are used to support various quality-of-service （QoS） features and provide preferential treatment to certain types of traffic. Traditionally, network operators use ‘traceroute＇ and ‘ping＇ to troubleshoot load balancing and QoS problems. However, these tools are not supported by the common OpenFlow-based switches in software-defined networking （SDN）. In addition, traceroute and ping have potential problems. Because load balancing mechanisms balance flows to different paths, it is impossible for these tools to send a single type of probe packet to find the forwarding paths of flows and measure latencies. Therefore, tracing flows＇ real forwarding paths is needed before measuring their latencies, and path tracing and latency measurement should be jointly considered. To this end, FlowTrace is proposed to find arbitrary flow paths and measure flow latencies in OpenFlow networks. FlowTrace collects all flow entries and calculates flow paths according to the collected flow entries. However, polling flow entries from switches will induce high overhead in the control plane of SDN. Therefore, a passive flow table collecting method with zero control plane overhead is proposed to address this problem. After finding flows＇ real forwarding paths, FlowTrace uses a new measurement method to measure the latencies of different flows. Results of experiments conducted in Mininet indicate that FlowTrace can correctly find flow paths and accurately measure the latencies of flows in different priority classes.

Indoor multi-robot intelligent coordination based on omni-directional visible light communication

Multi-robot coordination （MRC） is a key challenge for complex artificial intelligence systems, and conventional wireless-communication-based MRC mechanisms that cannot be deployed in radio-frequency-limited environ- ments. In this Letter, we present a promising solution that utilizes indoor omni-directional visible light communication （VLC） technology to realize efficient multi-robot intelligent coordination （MRIC）. The specific design is presented along with the implemental details of a practical MRIC experimental platform. The exper- imental results show that a 50 Mb/s on-off-keying-based omni-directional VLC can be realized with an effective distance of 2.3 m and a bit error rate of 〈10^-6 in the proposed MRIC platform.