Data originating from non-voice sources is expected to play an increasingly important role in the next generation mobile communication services. To plan these networks, a detailed understanding of their traffic load is essential. Recent experimental studies have shown that network traffic originating from data applications can be self-similar, leading to a different queueing behavior than predicted by conventional traffic models. Heavy tailed probability distributions are appropriate for capturing this property, but including those random processes in a performance analysis makes it difficult and often impossible to find numerical results. In this thesis three related topics are addressed: It is shown that Markovian models with a large state space can be used to describe traffic which is self-similar over a large time scale, a Maximum Likelihood approach to fit parallel Erlang-k distributions directly to time series is developed, and the performance of a channel assignment procedure in a wireless communication network is evaluated using the above mentioned techniques to set up a Markovian model. Outcomes of the performance analysis are blocking probabilities and latency due to restrictions of the channel assignment procedure as well as estimations of the overall bandwidth that the system is required to offer in order to support a given number of users.

Mobile devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptops continue to increase in memory and processor speed at a rapid pace. In recent years it has become common for users to check their email, browse the internet, or play music and movies while traveling. The performance gains are also making mobile graphics renderers more viable applications. However, the underlying battery technology that powers mobile devices has only tripled in capacity in the past 15 years whereas processor speeds have seen a 100-fold increase in the same period. Photon mapping, an extension of ray-tracing, is a robust global illumination algorithm used to produce photorealistic images. Photon mapping, like ray-tracing, can render high-quality specular highlights, transparent and reflective materials, and soft shadows. Complex effects such as caustics, participating media, and subsurface scattering can be rendered more efficiently using photon mapping. This work profiles the energy use of a photon-mapping based renderer to first establish what aspects require the most energy. Second, the effect several photon mapping settings have on image quality is measured. Reasonable tradeoffs between energy savings and moderately diminished image quality can then be recommended, making photon mapping more viable on mobile devices. Our results show that image quality is affected the least as settings corresponding to final gather computations are adjusted. This implies that a user can trade a modest decrease in image quality for significant gains in energy efficiency. Suggestions are made for using energy more efficiently when rendering caustics. Results also show that, although overall energy use is higher with larger image resolutions, per-pixel energy costs are cheaper.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T18:25:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 31 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / As tecnologias móveis de comunicação aliadas à convergência de mídias têm promovido novas formas de fazer e consumir informação. O jornalismo 3G enquanto último grande avanço, em termos tecnológicos, na produção de conteúdos, diz respeito à utilização das redes de telefonia móvel de terceira geração associada a ferramentas móveis multimidiáticas que vão de simples telefones celulares até aparelhos dos mais sofisticados. A proposta desta pesquisa, no esforço para colaborar com a produção científica sobre jornalismo e novas tecnologias, evidencia-se em um estudo que contempla o jornalismo móvel, em especial a prática do jornalismo 3G, como nova modalidade emergente de produção jornalística. Com a hibridização destas tecnologias e sua capacidade multifuncional, o jornalismo 3G emerge ao potencializar uma estrutura convergente, já estabelecida com o jornalismo online. Em outras palavras, esta prática soma ao ambiente redacional multimidiático a possibilidade de o desterritorializar. Isto significa uma verdadeira

This research is motivated by the recent developments in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to support seamless integration of moving networks deployed in vehicles to the global Internet. The effort, known as Network Mobility (NEMO), paves the way to support high-speed Internet access in mass transit systems, e.g. trains; buses; ferries; and planes; through the use of on-board mobile routers embedded in the vehicle. One of the critical research challenges of this vision is to achieve high-speed and reliable back-haul connectivity between the mobile router and the rest of the Internet. The problem is particularly challenging due to the fact that a mobile router must rely on wireless links with limited bandwidth and unpredictable quality variations as the vehicle moves around. In this thesis, the multi-homing concept is applied to approach the problem. With multi-homing, mobile router has more than one connection to the Internet. This is achieved by connecting the mobile router to a diverse array of wireless access technologies (e.g., GPRS, CDMA, 802.11, and 802.16) and/or a multiplicity of wireless service providers. While the aggregation helps addressing the bandwidth problem, quality variation problem can be mitigated by employing advanced traffic engineering techniques that dynamically control inbound and outbound traffic over multiple connections. More specifically, the thesis investigates traffic engineering solutions for mobile networks that can effectively address the performance objectives, e.g. maximizing profit for mobile network operator; guaranteeing quality of service for the users; and maintaining fair access to the back-haul bandwidth. Traffic engineering solutions with three different levels of control have been investigated. First, it is shown, using detailed computer simulation of popular applications and networking protocols(e.g., File Transfer Protocol and Transmission Control Protocol), that packet-level traffic engineering which makes decisions of which Internet connection to use for each and every packet, leads to poor system throughput. The main problem with packet-based traffic engineering stems from the fact that in mobile environment where link bandwidths and delay can vary significantly, packets using different connections may experience different delays causing unexpected arrivals at destinations. Second, a maximum utility flow-level traffic engineering has been proposed that aims to maximize a utility function that accounts for bandwidth utilization on the one hand, and fairness on the other. The proposed solution is compared against previously proposed flow-level traffic engineering schemes and shown to have better performance in terms of throughput and fairness. The third traffic engineering proposal addresses the issue of maximizing operator?s profit when different Internet connections have different charging rates, and guaranteeing per user bandwidth through admission control. Finally, a new signaling protocol is designed to allow the mobile router to control its inbound traffic.

One of the facets of the mobile or wireless environment is that errors quite often occur in bursts. Thus, strong codes are required to provide protection against such errors. This in turn motivates the employment of decoding algorithms which are simple to implement, yet are still able to attempt to take the dependence or memory of the channel model into account in order to give optimal decoding estimates. Furthermore, such algorithms should be able to be applied for a variety of channel models and signalling alphabets. The research presented within this thesis describes a number of algorithms which can be used with linear block codes. Given the received word, these algorithms determine the symbol which was most likely transmitted, on a symbol-by-symbol basis. Due to their relative simplicity, a collection of algorithms for memoryless channels is reported first. This is done to establish the general style and principles of the overall collection. The concept of matrix diagonalisation may or may not be applied, resulting in two different types of procedure. Ultimately, it is shown that the choice between them should be motivated by whether storage space or computational complexity has the higher priority. As with all other procedures explained herein, the derivation is first performed for a binary signalling alphabet and then extended to fields of prime order. These procedures form the paradigm for algorithms used in conjunction with finite state channel models, where errors generally occur in bursts. In such cases, the necessary information is stored in matrices rather than as scalars. Finally, by analogy with the weight polynomials of a code and its dual as characterised by the MacWilliams identities, new procedures are developed for particular types of Gilbert-Elliott channel models. Here, the calculations are derived from three parameters which profile the occurrence of errors in those models. The decoding is then carried out using polynomial evaluation rather than matrix multiplication. Complementing this theory are several examples detailing the steps required to perform the decoding, as well as a collection of simulation results demonstrating the practical value of these algorithms.

通訊產業在本世紀快速成長，吸引眾多廠商投入，但是基於激烈的變化，讓經營生態產生劇烈震盪，在這種背景下，本研究決定選擇通訊通路作為研究的標的，針對國內一家通訊通路企業的現有經營策略及策略規劃進行深入分析。因為策略不但要適應環境的變化，也要符合被規劃者本身的條件與目標，故本研究以個案研究的方式，選擇其做為研究。期待透過深入的訪談與分析，找出在這個競爭激烈的產業中，何者為得以脫穎而出的原因。 歸結來說，本研究透過個案研究法，以國內通訊通路業者作為研究個案，歷時七個多月的調查與分析，獲得以下主要結論： 1.國內通訊通路業的關鍵成功因素為: 上下游關係、規模經濟以及增加本身之附加價值。 2.從內外在環境分析及條件前提來看，個案公司最適合採行產品發展策略，本研究依據營業收入、獲利率、風險程度及市場佔有率的評估準則，分別給予不同權重，建議個案公司先發展PHS行動配件包。 3.個案公司的未來成長策略可選擇產品多角化與市場擴充策略，最能發揮個案公司的核心能力，並能繼續累積未來的競爭武器。在產品多角化的競爭策略為採取產品差異化集中路線，針對明確的網路發展架構為基礎發展新產品，持續增加競爭優勢，以提高營業收入、市場佔有率以及獲利率，並降低風險。在市場擴充上，勢必得朝大陸發展，以期另創新局。

The future Internet will need to cater for an increasing number of powerful devices and entire groups of networks to roam in heterogeneous access networks. The current approach towards meeting such requirements, which is to retrofit mobility solutions to different layers of the protocol stack, has given rise to an increasingly fragmented network control layer. Furthermore, retrofitting solutions in an ad-hoc manner to the protocol stack does not provide consistent support from the network to different applications. This lack of a common control layer for facilitating roaming in heterogeneous networking environments represents a crucial challenge both technically and from a user perspective. To this end, a novel mobility architecture forms the basis and the first part of this dissertation. The work on investigating current network mobility solutions and improving these solutions if deemed necessary, in order to reuse within the novel mobility architecture constitutes the second part of this dissertation. The IETF standard protocol for network mobility was implemented and its performance was analysed on a real networking environment. This enabled to identify problems in the standard which affect the handover and routing performance. To address the identified routing and protocol header overheads of the standard network mobility protocol a novel optimal routing framework, OptiNets was proposed. To address the handover latency issues, optimizations to IPv6 network attachment were incorporated and also an access technology independent multiple interface Make-Before-Break handover mechanism was proposed. The viability of the OptiNets framework and the handover optimizations were demonstrated by analysis and by implementation. A more general external factor that affects the performance of mobile networks which is bandwidth scarcity of Wireless Wide Area Networks was addressed, by proposing a bandwidth fuelling architecture for on-board mobile networks. The feasibility of the bandwidth fuelling architecture was analysed by implementing a prototype and evaluating its performance.

<p>The purpose with this essay is to examine the phenomenon SMS in TV. Partly by identify the communication process behind the phenomenon and partly by describing it in a editorial and technical point of view. We have analysed the communication process regarding scientific theories in communication, interaction and convergence. With a qualitive approach we have fulfilled four interviews and two small ethnographical field observations. Objects for the interviews and observations have been two Swedish produced debate-programs, broadcasted in TV; Diskus in TV4 and Debatt in SVT2. Our conclusions shows that the phenomenon SMS in TV provides the traditional one-way communicative medium TV a new opportunity to create a feedback-channel between the TV-viewer and the TV-producer. The main purpose with SMS in TV from a TV-producers point of view is to let the TV-viewer have the possibility to send a SMS-message with his or her thoughts or questions to the TV-producer and by that affect the TV-program. Our conclusions also describes how the phenomenon is used in a editorial way and how it’s produced and used in a technical point of view. Further discussions are made regarding problems connected to the phenomenon and it’s future possibilities. </p> / <p>Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka fenomenet SMS i TV. Dels för att identifiera fenomenets kommunikationsprocess och dels för att åskådliggöra fenomenet redaktionellt och tekniskt sett. För att analysera fenomenets kommunikationsprocess har vi valt att utgå från kommunikations-, interaktions- och konvergensteorier. Med en kvalitativ ansats har vi genomfört fyra intervjuer samt två mindre fältobservationer med etnografisk ansats. Utgångspunkten för dessa har varit de svenskproducerade TV-sända debattprogrammen Diskus i TV4 och Debatt i SVT2. Slutsatserna visar att fenomenet SMS i TV ger det traditionellt envägskommunikativa mediet TV en möjlighet till återkoppling mellan TV-tittaren och TV-producenten. Syftet med SMS i TV är att från TV-producentens sida samverka med TV-tittaren genom att låta denne skicka ett SMS-meddelande med sin åsikt eller fråga i för att påverka innehållet i det aktuella TV-programmet. Slutsatserna beskriver även hur fenomenet används redaktionellt och hur det produceras och fungerar tekniskt sett. Vidare diskuteras problematiken med SMS i TV samt fenomenets möjligheter i framtiden. </p>

<p>This thesis investigates the use of mobile phones as service-delivery devices in a sign language machine translation system. Four sign language visualization methods were evaluated on mobile phones. Three of the methods were synthetic sign language visualization methods. Three factors were considered: the intelligibility of sign language, as rendered by the method / the power consumption / and the bandwidth usage associated with each method. The average intelligibility rate was 65%, with some methods achieving intelligibility rates of up to 92%. The average le size was 162 KB and, on average, the power consumption increased to 180% of the idle state, across all methods. This research forms part of the Integration of Signed and Verbal Communication: South African Sign Language Recognition and Animation (SASL) project at the University of the Western Cape and serves as an integration platform for the group's research. In order to perform this research a machine translation system that uses mobile phones as service-delivery devices was developed as well as a 3D Avatar for mobile phones. It was concluded that mobile phones are suitable service-delivery platforms for sign language machine translation systems.</p>

To achieve the goal of efficient ”anytime, anywhere” communication, it is essential to develop mobile devices which can efficiently support multiple wireless communication standards. Also, in order to efficiently accommodate the further evolution of these standards, it should be possible to modify/upgrade the operation of the mobile devices without having to recall previously deployed devices. This is achievable if as much functionality of the mobile device as possible is provided through software. A mobile device which fits this description is called a Software Defined Radio (SDR). Reconfigurable hardware-based solutions are an attractive option for realizing SDRs as they can potentially provide a favourable combination of the flexibility of a DSP or a GPP and the efficiency of an ASIC. The work presented in this thesis discusses the development of efficient reconfigurable hardware for one of the most energy-intensive functionalities in the mobile device, namely, Forward Error Correction (FEC). FEC is required in order to achieve reliable transfer of information at minimal transmit power levels. FEC is achieved by encoding the information in a process called channel coding. Previous studies have shown that the FEC unit accounts for around 40% of the total energy consumption of the mobile unit. In addition, modern wireless standards also place the additional requirement of flexibility on the FEC unit. Thus, the FEC unit of the mobile device represents a considerable amount of computing ability that needs to be accommodated into a very small power, area and energy budget. Two channel coding techniques have found widespread use in most modern wireless standards -namely convolutional coding and turbo coding. The Viterbi algorithm is most widely used for decoding convolutionally encoded sequences. It is possible to use this algorithm iteratively in order to decode turbo codes. Hence, this thesis specifically focusses on developing architectures for flexible Viterbi decoders. Chapter 2 provides a description of the Viterbi and turbo decoding techniques. The flexibility requirements placed on the Viterbi decoder by modern standards can be divided into two types -code rate flexibility and constraint length flexibility. The code rate dictates the number of received bits which are handled together as a symbol at the receiver. Hence, code rate flexibility needs to be built into the basic computing units which are used to implement the Viterbi algorithm. The constraint length dictates the number of computations required per received symbol as well as the manner of transfer of results between these computations. Hence, assuming that multiple processing units are used to perform the required computations, supporting constraint length flexibility necessitates changes in the interconnection network connecting the computing units. A constraint length K Viterbi decoder needs 2K−1computations to be performed per received symbol. The results of the computations are exchanged among the computing units in order to prepare for the next received symbol. The communication pattern according to which these results are exchanged forms a graph called a de Bruijn graph, with 2K−1nodes. This implies that providing constraint length flexibility requires being able to realize de Bruijn graphs of various sizes on the interconnection network connecting the processing units. This thesis focusses on providing constraint length flexibility in an efficient manner. Quite clearly, the topology employed for interconnecting the processing units has a huge effect on the efficiency with which multiple constraint lengths can be supported. This thesis aims to explore the usefulness of interconnection topologies similar to the de Bruijn graph, for building constraint length flexible Viterbi decoders. Five different topologies have been considered in this thesis, which can be discussed under two different headings, as done below: De Bruijn network-based architectures The interconnection network that is of chief interest in this thesis is the de Bruijn interconnection network itself, as it is identical to the communication pattern for a Viterbi decoder of a given constraint length. The problem of realizing flexible constraint length Viterbi decoders using a de Bruijn network has been approached in two different ways. The first is an embedding-theoretic approach where the problem of supporting multiple constraint lengths on a de Bruijn network is seen as a problem of embedding smaller sized de Bruijn graphs on a larger de Bruijn graph. Mathematical manipulations are presented to show that this embedding can generally be accomplished with a maximum dilation of, where N is the number of computing nodes in the physical network, while simultaneously avoiding any congestion of the physical links. In this case, however, the mapping of the decoder states onto the processing nodes is assumed fixed. Another scheme is derived based on a variable assignment of decoder states onto computing nodes, which turns out to be more efficient than the embedding-based approach. For this scheme, the maximum number of cycles per stage is found to be limited to 2 irrespective of the maximum contraint length to be supported. In addition, it is also found to be possible to execute multiple smaller decoders in parallel on the physical network, for smaller constraint lengths. Consequently, post logic-synthesis, this architecture is found to be more area-efficient than the architecture based on the embedding theoretic approach. It is also a more efficiently scalable architecture. Alternative architectures There are several interconnection topologies which are closely connected to the de Bruijn graph, and hence could form attractive alternatives for realizing flexbile constraint length Viterbi decoders. We consider two more topologies from this class -namely, the shuffle-exchange network and the flattened butterfly network. The variable state assignment scheme developed for the de Bruijn network is found to be directly applicable to the shuffle-exchange network. The average number of clock cycles per stage is found to be limited to 4 in this case. This is again independent of the constraint length to be supported. On the flattened butterfly (which is actually identical to the hypercube), a state scheduling scheme similar to that of bitonic sorting is used. This architecture is found to offer the ideal throughput of one decoded bit every clock cycle, for any constraint length. For comparison with a more general purpose topology, we consider a flexible constraint length Viterbi decoder architecture based on a 2D-mesh, which is a popular choice for general purpose applications, as well as many signal processing applications. The state scheduling scheme used here is also similar to that used for bitonic sorting on a mesh. All the alternative architectures are capable of executing multiple smaller decoders in parallel on the larger interconnection network. Inferences Following logic synthesis and power estimation, it is found that the de Bruijn network-based architecture with the variable state assignment scheme yields the lowest (area)−(time) product, while the flattened butterfly network-based architecture yields the lowest (area) - (time)2product. This means, that the de Bruijn network-based architecture is the best choice for moderate throughput applications, while the flattened butterfly network-based architecture is the best choice for high throughput applications. However, as the flattened butterfly network is less scalable in terms of size compared to the de Bruijn network, it can be concluded that among the architectures considered in this thesis, the de Bruijn network-based architecture with the variable state assignment scheme is overall an attractive choice for realizing flexible constraint length Viterbi decoders.