Cross-layer-based adaptive TCP algorithm for cloud computing services in 4G LTE-A relaying communication

Cloud computing provides various diverse services for users accessing big data through high data rate cellular networks, e.g., LTE-A, IEEE 802.11ac, etc. Although LTE-A supports very high data rate, multi-hop relaying, and cooperative transmission, LTE-A suffers from high interference, path loss, high mobility, etc. Additionally, the accesses of cloud computing services need the transport layer protocols (e.g., TCP, UDP, and streaming) for achieving end-to-end transmissions. Clearly, the transmission QoS is significantly degraded when the big data transmissions are done through the TCP protocol over a high interference LTE-A environment. The issue of providing high data rate and high reliability transmissions in cloud computing needs to be addressed completely. Thus, this paper proposes a cross-layer-based adaptive TCP algorithm to gather the LTE-A network states (e.g., AMC, CQI, relay link state, available bandwidth, etc.), and then feeds the state information back to the TCP sender for accurately executing the network congestion control of TCP. As a result, by using the accurate TCP congestion window (cwnd) under a high interference LTE-A, the number of timeouts and packet losses are significantly decreased. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms the compared approaches in goodput and fairness, especially in high interference environment. Especially, the goodput of the proposed approach is 139.42 % higher than that of NewReno when the wireless loss increases up to 4 %. Furthermore, the throughput and the response functions are mathematically analyzed. The analysis results can justify the claims of the proposed approach.     

Scene categorization based on local–global feature fusion and multi-scale multi-spatial resolution encoding

With the bag-of-contextual-visual-word (BOCVW) models, we propose a scene categorization method based on local–global feature fusion and multi-scale multi-spatial resolution encoding. First, the performances of the BOCVW models belonging to different features are mutually reinforced by fusing other types of features within local regions. Then, the spatial configuration information is explored using a multi-scale multi-spatial resolution encoding approach. Furthermore, these encoded BOCVW models are globally fused using an improved maximum-margin optimization strategy, which considers the margin between input vectors of different categories and the diameter of the smallest ball containing feature vectors simultaneously. The proposed method has been evaluated on three scene categorization datasets consisting of scene categories 8, 15, and 67, respectively. And its effectiveness has been verified by these experimental results.     

Photoactive Electrodes Incorporating Electrosprayed Bacterial Reaction Centers

Highly efficient light absorption and charge separation within the photosystem and reaction center (RC) complexes of photosynthetic plants and bacteria are of great interest for solar cell and photo detector applications, since they offer almost unity quantum yield and expected ultimate power conversion efficiencies of more than 18% and 12%, respectively. In addition, the charge separated states created by these protein complexes are very long lived compared to conventional semiconductor solar cells. In this work, a novel technique is presented for the deposition of photosynthetic protein complexes, by electrospraying RCs of Rhodobacter sphaeroides onto highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) electrodes. Remarkably, it is shown that the RCs not only survive exposure to the high electric fields but also yield peak photocurrent densities of up to 7 μA cm^?2, which is equal to the highest value reported to date.     

A fully on-chip LDO voltage regulator with 37 dB PSRR at 1 MHz for remotely powered biomedical implants

This article presents a fully on-chip low-power LDO voltage regulator dedicated to remotely powered wireless cortical implants. This regulator is stable over the full range of alternating load current and provides fast load regulation achieved by applying a time-domain design methodology. Moreover, a new compensation technique is proposed and implemented to improve PSRR beyond the performance levels which can be obtained using the standard cascode compensation technique. Measurement results show that the regulator has a load regulation of 0.175 V/A, a line regulation of 0.024%, and a PSRR of 37 dB at 1 MHz power carrier frequency. The output of the regulator settles within 10-bit accuracy of the nominal voltage (1.8 V) within 1.6 μs, at full load transition. The total ground current including the bandgap reference circuit is 28 μA and the active chip area measures 290 μm × 360 μm in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology.     

Adaptive Packetization for Conversational Video Service over IEEE 802.11 WLANs with Hidden Terminals

For IEEE 802.11-based wireless local area networks (WLANs), due to inherent random access mechanisms, it is very challenging to provision video services, which are subject to very stringent quality-of-service (QoS) constraints. Collision and fading are two main sources of packet loss in WLANs and as such, both are affected by the packetization at the medium access control (MAC) layer. While a larger packet is preferred to balance protocol header overhead, a shorter packet is less vulnerable to packet loss due to channel fading errors or staggered collisions in the presence of hidden terminals. In this paper, we exploit estimate of collision probabilities to adapt packetization for video frames. We first show analytically that the effective throughput is a unimodal function of packet size when considering both channel fading and staggered collisions. We then design an additive increase and multiplicative decrease (AIMD) packetization strategy which adjusts the MAC-layer packet size based on local estimate of staggered collision probability. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach can greatly improve the effective throughput of WLAN and reduce video frame transfer delay.     

A High Throughput Configurable SDR Detector for Multi-user MIMO Wireless Systems

Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) in MIMO technology significantly increases the spectral efficiency, and hence capacity, of a wireless communication system: it is a core component of the next generation wireless systems, e.g. WiMAX, 3GPP LTE and other OFDM-based communication schemes. Moreover, spatial division multiple access (SDMA) is one of the widely used techniques for sharing the wireless medium between different mobile devices. Sphere detection is a prominent method of simplifying the detection complexity in both SDM and SDMA systems while maintaining BER performance comparable with the optimum maximum-likelihood (ML) detection. On the other hand, with different standards supporting different system parameters, it is crucial for both base station and handset devices to be configurable and seamlessly switch between different modes without the need for separate dedicated hardware units. This challenge emphasizes the need for SDR designs that target the handset devices. In this paper, we propose the architecture and FPGA realization of a configurable sort-free sphere detector, Flex-Sphere, that supports 4, 16, 64-QAM modulations as well as a combination of 2, 3 and 4 antenna/user configuration for handsets. The detector provides a data rate of up to 857.1 Mbps that fits well within the requirements of any of the next generation wireless standards. The algorithmic optimizations employed to produce an FPGA friendly realization are discussed.     

A 1.44-mW, 1-MHz bandwidth continuous-time Σ∆ modulator with 10-bit ENOB in 130-nm CMOS

A low-power, low-pass continuous-time sigma-delta A/D modulator with 1-MHz bandwidth is implemented in a 130-nm CMOS process. The circuit is targeted for an IEEE 802.15.4 direct conversion receiver operating in the 2.4-GHz band. It has a third-order feedforward single-loop filter and a 1-bit quantizer to minimize power consumption. Non-return-to-zero DAC pulse shaping is used to reduce sensitivity to clock jitter. Clocked at 64 MHz, the prototype chip achieves 62-dB peak SNR, −70-dB peak THD, 63-dB dynamic range with an oversampling ratio of 32. The built-in anti-alias filter provides alias attenuation greater than 57 dB, which improves coexistence of the receiver with other devices that operate in the 2.4-GHz band. The circuit dissipates 1.44 mW from the 1.2-V supply and the active die area is 0.1 mm².     

Integrated circuit design for physical unclonable function using differential amplifiers

A physical unclonable function (PUF) based on process variations on silicon wafers is a very promising technology which finds various applications in identification and authentication, but only a few integrated circuits have been reported so far. As those circuits are vulnerable to power supply noises, switching noises and environmental variations, they lead to a reliability issue such as time-varying or metastable responses. To resolve this issue, this letter proposes a new integrated circuit design for PUFs using differential amplifiers. The feasibility of the proposed circuit has been theoretically analyzed and validated through HSPICE simulations for the previous and proposed circuits.     

An Adaptive Learning Scheme for Medium Access with Channel Reservation in Wireless Networks

Providing effective medium access for wireless networks is a challenging task. Most of the existing protocols of IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) work towards the goal of achieving effective channel access by developing various backoff procedures. In this paper, we make an attempt to develop a new medium access protocol named Learning Automata (LA) based Wireless Channel Reservation (LAWCR). We use an LA approach to implement reservation for channel access for single hop wireless networks. Also, sequence procedure is used to improve the reservation mechanism. The performance of the proposed LAWCR scheme show significant improvements over the legacy DCF protocol with respect to important criteria such as the average time spent in the buffer and the throughput.