The sphere packing bound by Shannon [18] provides a lower bound to the frameerror rate (FER) achievable by an(n,k,d)code but is not directly applicable tobinary codes. Gallager [4] presented his coding theorem for the average FER forthe ensemble of all random binary(n,k,d)codes. There are 2npossible binarycombinations for each codeword which in terms of then-dimensional signal spacehyp…
There is a certain sense of strangeness to write the introduction to a book on undoing networks in voluntary self-isolation.1 The once open and connected world is suddenly disconnected and physically more separated than ever before. National borders are being closed, international travel is banned, people are encouraged—orsometimes forced with the threat of a fine—to seek shelter or stayhom…
This book is about the struggles of platform workers. The ideas for it began in London in June 2016 when I met a Deliveroo rider. I had heard the name Deliveroo before, but did not know much about it. As is often the case with these things, I then started to see riders across the city. I saw them waiting at traffic lights or outside restaurants. The green and…
Sound economic policy presupposes availability of timely, comprehensive, credible, and multi-purpose data that many African countries have lacked for a long period. It is not long ago when major policy reforms were implemented based on findings drawn from faulty data. A recent project B. Ndemo Kenya’s Ambassador, Belgium and the EU Mission, Brussels, Belgiume-mail: bndemo@bitang…
A generation ago, "cyberspace" was just a term from science fiction, used to describe the nascent network of computers linking a few university labs. Today, our entire modern way of life, from communication to commerce to conflict, fundamentally depends on the Internet. And the cybersecurity issues that result challenge literally everyone: politicians wrestling with everything from cybercrime t…
Virtual Exchange refers to the numerous initiatives and methodologies which engage learners in sustained online collaborative learning and interaction with partners from different cultural backgrounds as part of their study programs and under the guidance of teachers or trained facilitators. This book reports on a large-scale European project, VALIANT (Virtual Innovation and Support Networks fo…
When considering the title of this book, we, as its editors, had to reflect on the notion of change. Change is constant and inevitable, but fundamental changes do not happen overnight. Such changes result from actions and measures that address deep, complex and interrelated systemic issues, and thus require a shift in mindset. Fifty years ago, Gregory Bateson (1972/2000), an early advocate for …
The IoT European Platforms Initiative (IoT-EPI) projects are address-ing the topic of Internet of Things and Platforms for Connected Smart Objects and aim to deliver an IoT extended into a web of platforms for connected devices and objects that supports smart environments, businesses, services and persons with dynamic and adaptive configu-ration capabilities. The specific areas of …
Should we talk? This book treats this question, and many others, as beingempirical in nature: if we were to live through a given situation in 1000 par-allel lives, where in one half we talked and in the other half we didn’t talk,in which of the halves would we fare better?The results of such a thought experiment vary betweenRachel,Dimitri,andSteve– or any other conversation that we may ex…
MEC provides a distributed computing environment by placing compute and storageresources closer to the consumer or enterprise end user. The termMECwas first intro-duced in 2013, when Nokia Siemens Networks and IBM developed a platform calledApplication Service Platform for Networks to allow mobile operators to deploy, run,and integrate applications at the edge of the network [2]. In 2014, the M…