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Description
Communication networks, both wired and wireless, are expected to have a certain level of fault-tolerance capability.These networks are also expected to ensure a graceful degradation in performance when some of the network components fail. Traditional studies on fault tolerance in communication networks, for the most part, make no assumptions regarding the location of node/link faults, i.e., the faulty nodes and links may be close to each other or far from each other. However, in many real life scenarios, there exists a strong spatial correlation among the faulty nodes and links. Such failures are often encountered in disaster situations, e.g., natural calamities or enemy attacks. In presence of such region-based faults, many of traditional network analysis and fault-tolerant metrics, that are valid under non-spatially correlated faults, are no longer applicable. To this effect, the main thrust of this research is design and analysis of robust networks in presence of such region-based faults. One important finding of this research is that if some prior knowledge is available on the maximum size of the region that might be affected due to a region-based fault, this piece of knowledge can be effectively utilized for resource efficient design of networks. It has been shown in this dissertation that in some scenarios, effective utilization of this knowledge may result in substantial saving is transmission power in wireless networks. In this dissertation, the impact of region-based faults on the connectivity of wireless networks has been studied and a new metric, region-based connectivity, is proposed to measure the fault-tolerance capability of a network. In addition, novel metrics, such as the region-based component decomposition number(RBCDN) and region-based largest component size(RBLCS) have been proposed to capture the network state, when a region-based fault disconnects the network. Finally, this dissertation presents efficient resource allocation techniques that ensure tolerance against region-based faults, in distributed file storage networks and data center networks.
ContributorsBanerjee, Sujogya (Author) / Sen, Arunabha (Thesis advisor) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Richa, Andrea (Committee member) / Hurlbert, Glenn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
As networks are playing an increasingly prominent role in different aspects of our lives, there is a growing awareness that improving their performance is of significant importance. In order to enhance performance of networks, it is essential that scarce networking resources be allocated smartly to match the continuously changing network environment. This dissertation focuses on two different kinds of networks - communication and social, and studies resource allocation problems in these networks. The study on communication networks is further divided into different networking technologies - wired and wireless, optical and mobile, airborne and terrestrial. Since nodes in an airborne network (AN) are heterogeneous and mobile, the design of a reliable and robust AN is highly complex. The dissertation studies connectivity and fault-tolerance issues in ANs and proposes algorithms to compute the critical transmission range in fault free, faulty and delay tolerant scenarios. Just as in the case of ANs, power optimization and fault tolerance are important issues in wireless sensor networks (WSN). In a WSN, a tree structure is often used to deliver sensor data to a sink node. In a tree, failure of a node may disconnect the tree. The dissertation investigates the problem of enhancing the fault tolerance capability of data gathering trees in WSN. The advent of OFDM technology provides an opportunity for efficient resource utilization in optical networks and also introduces a set of novel problems, such as routing and spectrum allocation (RSA) problem. This dissertation proves that RSA problem is NP-complete even when the network topology is a chain, and proposes approximation algorithms. In the domain of social networks, the focus of this dissertation is study of influence propagation in presence of active adversaries. In a social network multiple vendors may attempt to influence the nodes in a competitive fashion. This dissertation investigates the scenario where the first vendor has already chosen a set of nodes and the second vendor, with the knowledge of the choice of the first, attempts to identify a smallest set of nodes so that after the influence propagation, the second vendor's market share is larger than the first.
ContributorsShirazipourazad, Shahrzad (Author) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Richa, Andrea (Committee member) / Saripalli, Srikanth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Resource allocation is one of the most challenging issues policy decision makers must address. The objective of this thesis is to explore the resource allocation from an economical perspective, i.e., how to purchase resources in order to satisfy customers' requests. In this thesis, we attend to answer the question: when and how to buy resources to fulfill customers' demands with minimum costs?
The first topic studied in this thesis is resource allocation in cloud networks. Cloud computing heralded an era where resources (such as computation and storage) can be scaled up and down elastically and on demand. This flexibility is attractive for its cost effectiveness: the cloud resource price depends on the actual utilization over time. This thesis studies two critical problems in cloud networks, focusing on the economical aspects of the resource allocation in the cloud/virtual networks, and proposes six algorithms to address the resource allocation problems for different discount models. The first problem attends a scenario where the virtual network provider offers different contracts to the service provider. Four algorithms for resource contract migration are proposed under two pricing models: Pay-as-You-Come and Pay-as-You-Go. The second problem explores a scenario where a cloud provider offers k contracts each with a duration and a rate respectively and a customer buys these contracts in order to satisfy its resource demand. This work shows that this problem can be seen as a 2-dimensional generalization of the classic online parking permit problem, and present a k-competitive online algorithm and an optimal online algorithm.
The second topic studied in this thesis is to explore how resource allocation and purchasing strategies work in our daily life. For example, is it worth buying a Yoga pass which costs USD 100 for ten entries, although it will expire at the end of this year? Decisions like these are part of our daily life, yet, not much is known today about good online strategies to buy discount vouchers with expiration dates. This work hence introduces a Discount Voucher Purchase Problem (DVPP). It aims to optimize the strategies for buying discount vouchers, i.e., coupons, vouchers, groupons which are valid only during a certain time period. The DVPP comes in three flavors: (1) Once Expire Lose Everything (OELE): Vouchers lose their entire value after expiration. (2) Once Expire Lose Discount (OELD): Vouchers lose their discount value after expiration. (3) Limited Purchasing Window (LPW): Vouchers have the property of OELE and can only be bought during a certain time window.
This work explores online algorithms with a provable competitive ratio against a clairvoyant offline algorithm, even in the worst case. In particular, this work makes the following contributions: we present a 4-competitive algorithm for OELE, an 8-competitive algorithm for OELD, and a lower bound for LPW. We also present an optimal offline algorithm for OELE and LPW, and show it is a 2-approximation solution for OELD.
The first topic studied in this thesis is resource allocation in cloud networks. Cloud computing heralded an era where resources (such as computation and storage) can be scaled up and down elastically and on demand. This flexibility is attractive for its cost effectiveness: the cloud resource price depends on the actual utilization over time. This thesis studies two critical problems in cloud networks, focusing on the economical aspects of the resource allocation in the cloud/virtual networks, and proposes six algorithms to address the resource allocation problems for different discount models. The first problem attends a scenario where the virtual network provider offers different contracts to the service provider. Four algorithms for resource contract migration are proposed under two pricing models: Pay-as-You-Come and Pay-as-You-Go. The second problem explores a scenario where a cloud provider offers k contracts each with a duration and a rate respectively and a customer buys these contracts in order to satisfy its resource demand. This work shows that this problem can be seen as a 2-dimensional generalization of the classic online parking permit problem, and present a k-competitive online algorithm and an optimal online algorithm.
The second topic studied in this thesis is to explore how resource allocation and purchasing strategies work in our daily life. For example, is it worth buying a Yoga pass which costs USD 100 for ten entries, although it will expire at the end of this year? Decisions like these are part of our daily life, yet, not much is known today about good online strategies to buy discount vouchers with expiration dates. This work hence introduces a Discount Voucher Purchase Problem (DVPP). It aims to optimize the strategies for buying discount vouchers, i.e., coupons, vouchers, groupons which are valid only during a certain time period. The DVPP comes in three flavors: (1) Once Expire Lose Everything (OELE): Vouchers lose their entire value after expiration. (2) Once Expire Lose Discount (OELD): Vouchers lose their discount value after expiration. (3) Limited Purchasing Window (LPW): Vouchers have the property of OELE and can only be bought during a certain time window.
This work explores online algorithms with a provable competitive ratio against a clairvoyant offline algorithm, even in the worst case. In particular, this work makes the following contributions: we present a 4-competitive algorithm for OELE, an 8-competitive algorithm for OELD, and a lower bound for LPW. We also present an optimal offline algorithm for OELE and LPW, and show it is a 2-approximation solution for OELD.
ContributorsHu, Xinhui (Author) / Richa, Andrea (Thesis advisor) / Schmid, Stefan (Committee member) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In this dissertation, two interrelated problems of service-based systems (SBS) are addressed: protecting users' data confidentiality from service providers, and managing performance of multiple workflows in SBS. Current SBSs pose serious limitations to protecting users' data confidentiality. Since users' sensitive data is sent in unencrypted forms to remote machines owned and operated by third-party service providers, there are risks of unauthorized use of the users' sensitive data by service providers. Although there are many techniques for protecting users' data from outside attackers, currently there is no effective way to protect users' sensitive data from service providers. In this dissertation, an approach is presented to protecting the confidentiality of users' data from service providers, and ensuring that service providers cannot collect users' confidential data while the data is processed or stored in cloud computing systems. The approach has four major features: (1) separation of software service providers and infrastructure service providers, (2) hiding the information of the owners of data, (3) data obfuscation, and (4) software module decomposition and distributed execution. Since the approach to protecting users' data confidentiality includes software module decomposition and distributed execution, it is very important to effectively allocate the resource of servers in SBS to each of the software module to manage the overall performance of workflows in SBS. An approach is presented to resource allocation for SBS to adaptively allocating the system resources of servers to their software modules in runtime in order to satisfy the performance requirements of multiple workflows in SBS. Experimental results show that the dynamic resource allocation approach can substantially increase the throughput of a SBS and the optimal resource allocation can be found in polynomial time
ContributorsAn, Ho Geun (Author) / Yau, Sik-Sang (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Dijiang (Committee member) / Ahn, Gail-Joon (Committee member) / Santanam, Raghu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation offers three essays that investigate consumers’ health-related food choices and behaviors from three different, yet complementary, angles. The first essay uses an eye-tracking experiment to examine consumers’ visual attention to the Nutrition Facts Panels for healthy and unhealthy products. In this essay, I focus on how involvement and familiarity affect consumers’ attention toward the Nutrition Facts panel and how these two psychological factors interact with new label format changes in attracting consumers’ attention. In the second essay, I demonstrate using individual-level scanner data that nutritional attributes interact with marketing mix elements to affect consumers’ nutrition intake profiles and their intra-category substitution patterns. My findings suggest that marketing-mix sensitivities are correlated with consumers’ preferences for nutrient attributes in ways that depend on the “healthiness” of the nutrient. For instance, featuring promotes is positively correlated with “healthy” nutritional characteristics such as high-protein, low-fat, or low-carbohydrates, whereas promotion and display are positively correlated with preferences for “unhealthy” characteristics such as high-fat, or high-carbohydrates. I use model simulations to show that some marketing-mix elements are able to induce consumers to purchase items with higher maximum-content levels than others. The fourth chapter shows that dieters are not all the same. I develop and validate a new scale that measures lay theories about abstinence vs. moderation. My findings from a series of experiments indicate that dieters’ recovery from recalled vs. actual indulgences depend on whether they favor abstinence or moderation. However, compensatory coping strategies provide paths for people with both lay theories to recover after an indulgence, in their own ways. The three essays provide insights into individual differences that determine approaches of purchase behaviors, and consumption patterns, and life style that people choose, and these insights have potential policy implications to aid in designing the food-related interventions and policies to improve the healthiness of consumers’ consumption profiles and more general food well-being.
ContributorsXie, Yi (Author) / Richards, Timothy (Thesis advisor) / Mandel, Naomi (Committee member) / Grebitus, Carola (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This article can be divided into six parts.
The first chapter analyzes the background, theatrical and particle reasons of this research. The author argues that the management of law firm needs a set of good system. The first one is operating the law firm in scale, and the other on is corporate management model, which shall be constructed in detail in the paper and will be put into practice by the law firm in which the author is worked.
The second chapter will introduce modern management theory, combining the situation of management in our law firm to analyze, raising some reasonable suggestions and instructions to promote our law firm to achieve the corporate management.
In the third chapter, the first chapter, starting with the review of the development process of foreign and our law firms, listing the organizational forms and the characteristics of our law firm, analyzing the situation and the drawbacks of the law firm management.
The fourth and fifth chapter introduce he background, the connotation of the corporate management model, listing the development and successful experience of some typical cases in respect of corporate management.
In the last chapter, the construction of corporate management model will be introduced in terms of organization form, human resource management and informationizing development.
The corporate management model is not mature in china. Though it is not easy to reform the existing model, but it should be believed that the development benefiting the legal industry will be achieved.
The first chapter analyzes the background, theatrical and particle reasons of this research. The author argues that the management of law firm needs a set of good system. The first one is operating the law firm in scale, and the other on is corporate management model, which shall be constructed in detail in the paper and will be put into practice by the law firm in which the author is worked.
The second chapter will introduce modern management theory, combining the situation of management in our law firm to analyze, raising some reasonable suggestions and instructions to promote our law firm to achieve the corporate management.
In the third chapter, the first chapter, starting with the review of the development process of foreign and our law firms, listing the organizational forms and the characteristics of our law firm, analyzing the situation and the drawbacks of the law firm management.
The fourth and fifth chapter introduce he background, the connotation of the corporate management model, listing the development and successful experience of some typical cases in respect of corporate management.
In the last chapter, the construction of corporate management model will be introduced in terms of organization form, human resource management and informationizing development.
The corporate management model is not mature in china. Though it is not easy to reform the existing model, but it should be believed that the development benefiting the legal industry will be achieved.
ContributorsZhu, Ping (Author) / Gu, Bin (Thesis advisor) / Chang, Chun (Thesis advisor) / Zhu, Ning (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This thesis investigates three different resource allocation problems, aiming to achieve two common goals: i) adaptivity to a fast-changing environment, ii) distribution of the computation tasks to achieve a favorable solution. The motivation for this work relies on the modern-era proliferation of sensors and devices, in the Data Acquisition Systems (DAS) layer of the Internet of Things (IoT) architecture. To avoid congestion and enable low-latency services, limits have to be imposed on the amount of decisions that can be centralized (i.e. solved in the ``cloud") and/or amount of control information that devices can exchange. This has been the motivation to develop i) a lightweight PHY Layer protocol for time synchronization and scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), ii) an adaptive receiver that enables Sub-Nyquist sampling, for efficient spectrum sensing at high frequencies, and iii) an SDN-scheme for resource-sharing across different technologies and operators, to harmoniously and holistically respond to fluctuations in demands at the eNodeB' s layer.
The proposed solution for time synchronization and scheduling is a new protocol, called PulseSS, which is completely event-driven and is inspired by biological networks. The results on convergence and accuracy for locally connected networks, presented in this thesis, constitute the theoretical foundation for the protocol in terms of performance guarantee. The derived limits provided guidelines for ad-hoc solutions in the actual implementation of the protocol.
The proposed receiver for Compressive Spectrum Sensing (CSS) aims at tackling the noise folding phenomenon, e.g., the accumulation of noise from different sub-bands that are folded, prior to sampling and baseband processing, when an analog front-end aliasing mixer is utilized.
The sensing phase design has been conducted via a utility maximization approach, thus the scheme derived has been called Cognitive Utility Maximization Multiple Access (CUMMA).
The framework described in the last part of the thesis is inspired by stochastic network optimization tools and dynamics.
While convergence of the proposed approach remains an open problem, the numerical results here presented suggest the capability of the algorithm to handle traffic fluctuations across operators, while respecting different time and economic constraints.
The scheme has been named Decomposition of Infrastructure-based Dynamic Resource Allocation (DIDRA).
The proposed solution for time synchronization and scheduling is a new protocol, called PulseSS, which is completely event-driven and is inspired by biological networks. The results on convergence and accuracy for locally connected networks, presented in this thesis, constitute the theoretical foundation for the protocol in terms of performance guarantee. The derived limits provided guidelines for ad-hoc solutions in the actual implementation of the protocol.
The proposed receiver for Compressive Spectrum Sensing (CSS) aims at tackling the noise folding phenomenon, e.g., the accumulation of noise from different sub-bands that are folded, prior to sampling and baseband processing, when an analog front-end aliasing mixer is utilized.
The sensing phase design has been conducted via a utility maximization approach, thus the scheme derived has been called Cognitive Utility Maximization Multiple Access (CUMMA).
The framework described in the last part of the thesis is inspired by stochastic network optimization tools and dynamics.
While convergence of the proposed approach remains an open problem, the numerical results here presented suggest the capability of the algorithm to handle traffic fluctuations across operators, while respecting different time and economic constraints.
The scheme has been named Decomposition of Infrastructure-based Dynamic Resource Allocation (DIDRA).
ContributorsFerrari, Lorenzo (Author) / Scaglione, Anna (Thesis advisor) / Bliss, Daniel (Committee member) / Ying, Lei (Committee member) / Reisslein, Martin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Due to the booming young mothers and fathers in the new era as well as the changes in the concept of parenting and the favorable liberalization of China's second child policy, the maternal-baby nursing market continues to grow, and it has become a must for businesses nowadays. In 2020, the size of the maternal-baby nursing market will reach 3.6 trillion. (Data: Yibang Power China's Maternal and Child Industry White Paper 2017).
The rapid development of mobile Internet, highly transparent information, consumers grasp the sovereignty, along with the rise of the middle class, consumption increase encouraged personalized, customized needs. The boundaries between online and offline are becoming increasingly blurred. Consumers are more inclined to choose multi-category with service channel providers. If the retailers still rely on good market resources, and the difference between the sales and purchase of commodities, they will face a huge challenge of the decrease in passenger flow and a decline in performance.
The paper takes the relationship between maternal-baby nursing retailers and targets customers as the study object, based on customer service of maternal-baby nursing retailer data, empirical studies, we found that this particular group, mothers and babies, especially value safety, quality, public praise and community review. If the retail enterprise attaches importance to establishing relationships with customers and enhances the relational viscosity through mutual trust, emotional formation and spread of public praise, it will help to increase the traffic volume and increase the output value of single customers.
The maternal-baby nursing retailers form a strong relationship between enterprises and customers by establishing a strong relationship between products and customers, employees and customers, and customers to customers. Maternal-baby nursing retailers operate single-customer value deeply, build a heavy membership system and manage customer assets, thereby enhancing their brand and performance.
The research on the method of establishing the strong tie can be considered as an analysis of feasibility. The research results of this paper will help to improve the overall customer service experience and satisfaction of the mother and infant retail industry, enhance the development of the whole industry and draw significance lessons from other service industries.
The rapid development of mobile Internet, highly transparent information, consumers grasp the sovereignty, along with the rise of the middle class, consumption increase encouraged personalized, customized needs. The boundaries between online and offline are becoming increasingly blurred. Consumers are more inclined to choose multi-category with service channel providers. If the retailers still rely on good market resources, and the difference between the sales and purchase of commodities, they will face a huge challenge of the decrease in passenger flow and a decline in performance.
The paper takes the relationship between maternal-baby nursing retailers and targets customers as the study object, based on customer service of maternal-baby nursing retailer data, empirical studies, we found that this particular group, mothers and babies, especially value safety, quality, public praise and community review. If the retail enterprise attaches importance to establishing relationships with customers and enhances the relational viscosity through mutual trust, emotional formation and spread of public praise, it will help to increase the traffic volume and increase the output value of single customers.
The maternal-baby nursing retailers form a strong relationship between enterprises and customers by establishing a strong relationship between products and customers, employees and customers, and customers to customers. Maternal-baby nursing retailers operate single-customer value deeply, build a heavy membership system and manage customer assets, thereby enhancing their brand and performance.
The research on the method of establishing the strong tie can be considered as an analysis of feasibility. The research results of this paper will help to improve the overall customer service experience and satisfaction of the mother and infant retail industry, enhance the development of the whole industry and draw significance lessons from other service industries.
ContributorsWang, Jianguo (Author) / Gu, Bin (Thesis advisor) / Chen, Hong (Thesis advisor) / Cui, Haitao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This study examines the 3 key questions of media budget allocation, to find our a better invest model. Including spending share of traditional media and digital media, program selection strategy and duration mix optimization to analyse the trend of sample A (a global cosmetic brand) . Based on every test media campaign, we do research of media performance and sales volumn, add youth consumer behavior result, to develop a media investment ROI model for this brand. Create the evaluation system according to past big data and find the learnings of different length TVC usage. Of course all relavant findings and implications will be summarized after every section.
ContributorsXu, Jin (Author) / Gu, Bin (Thesis advisor) / Chen, Xinlei (Thesis advisor) / Shao, Benjamin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Most advanced economies have evolved into service economies with the majority of their activity and jobs being in the service sector. The manufacturing sector is also going through a similar shift towards services. Manufacturers are increasingly complementing their products with new services in order to satisfy a broader array of customer needs and increase the value of their offerings. This shift has offered significant opportunities to the sector and the success of major firms such as IBM, Caterpillar, and Rolls-Royce in competing through services has been remarkable.
Despite the increased importance of services in the manufacturing sector, the academic literature is yet to investigate the many questions that arise under this new manufacturing paradigm. Perhaps for the same reason study of servitization is listed as a research priority in recent publications both in the field of service operations management and in the field services marketing. This dissertation covers three essays aimed at disentangling multiple aspects of the role of services in the manufacturing sector. The literature on the drivers and implications of transition towards services in manufacturing firms is limited. The three studies in this dissertation aim at shedding light on this issue.
Specifically, the first essay looks at the innovation benefits of service transactions with customers. This paper demonstrate the value of services in getting manufacturers closer to customers and allowing them glean useful information from their service interactions. The second essay investigates the antecedents of service strategy adoption. We suggest that the extant diversification theory does not fully explain servitization and this phenomenon represents a unique type of diversification, which is likely driven by different factors. Through econometric analysis of financial data over a 27-year period, this study explores characteristics of product, firm resources, competition, and industry that encourage adoption of service strategies in manufacturing sector. Finally, the third essay takes a deeper dive and focuses on dealerships, as service centers, in the automobile industry. It investigates the role of dealerships in the success of automakers and explores dealership traits that are critical for market success of an automobile brand.
Despite the increased importance of services in the manufacturing sector, the academic literature is yet to investigate the many questions that arise under this new manufacturing paradigm. Perhaps for the same reason study of servitization is listed as a research priority in recent publications both in the field of service operations management and in the field services marketing. This dissertation covers three essays aimed at disentangling multiple aspects of the role of services in the manufacturing sector. The literature on the drivers and implications of transition towards services in manufacturing firms is limited. The three studies in this dissertation aim at shedding light on this issue.
Specifically, the first essay looks at the innovation benefits of service transactions with customers. This paper demonstrate the value of services in getting manufacturers closer to customers and allowing them glean useful information from their service interactions. The second essay investigates the antecedents of service strategy adoption. We suggest that the extant diversification theory does not fully explain servitization and this phenomenon represents a unique type of diversification, which is likely driven by different factors. Through econometric analysis of financial data over a 27-year period, this study explores characteristics of product, firm resources, competition, and industry that encourage adoption of service strategies in manufacturing sector. Finally, the third essay takes a deeper dive and focuses on dealerships, as service centers, in the automobile industry. It investigates the role of dealerships in the success of automakers and explores dealership traits that are critical for market success of an automobile brand.
ContributorsGolara, Sina (Author) / Dooley, Kevin J (Thesis advisor) / Rogers, Dale (Committee member) / Kull, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018