CRII: CIF: Models, Theories and Algorithms for Timeliness Optimization in Information-update Systems

List of Personnel

Principle Investigator

• Bo Ji, Assistant Professor

Ph.D. Students

• Zhongdong Liu (Fall 2017 - present)

• Fengjiao Li (Spring 2018 - present; Scott Hibbs Future of Computing Award in 2020; IEEE INFOCOM 2019 Best Paper Award; IEEE INFOCOM 2019 Best-in-Session Presentation Award)

• Gamal Sallam (Fall 2016 - present; Temple University Doctoral Dissertation Completion Grant in 2020; CIS Graduate Research Assistant Award in 2019; CIS Graduate Research Assistant Award in 2019; IEEE INFOCOM 2018 Best-in-Session Presentation Award)

Former Ph.D. Students

• Yu Sang (Ph.D., June 2019; Presidential Fellowship from Temple University in 2014; Scott Hibbs Future of Computing Award in 2017; now Software Engineer at Facebook)

Undergraduate Students

• Jenna Ryan (Clarkson University, NSF REU; The third place at Temple NSF REU Site Research Symposium)

• Andrew Posmontier (Temple University, Science Scholars Program)

• Collin Rehmeyer (Temple University, Undergrad Researcher)

• Keita Ohshiro (Temple University, URP; Scott Hibbs Future of Computing Award in 2019; now Master's student at NYU)

• Aamir Mandviwalla (Temple University, Merit Scholar, Summer/Fall 2018; now Ph.D. student at RPI)

• Chelsea Zackey (Temple University, URP; now Master's student at Temple)

• Caleb Skinner (University of Texas at Austin, NSF REU; now Software Engineer at Dimensional Fund Advisors)

Award Information

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant CCF-1657162 from 2/15/2017 to 1/31/2021. [NSF link]

Project Goals and Activities

The last two decades have witnessed significant advances in the development of theoretical foundations and control mechanisms for network resource allocation. These newly developed theories and mechanisms have substantially improved network performance in terms of throughput and delay. However, optimizing throughput and delay is insufficient for networked systems that require real-time information update. The state-of-the-art theoretical foundations need to be largely expanded to integrate timeliness of information into the design of network control mechanisms. The research on timeliness optimization is still at its nascent stage. New theoretical results and practical solutions coming out of this project are expected to have a significant impact not only on information theory and networking community, but also on databases and machine learning community. This project will focus on providing research experiences to undergraduate and K-12 students, recruiting and advising underrepresented students, and engaging in curriculum development activities.

The goal of this research is to develop new models, theories, and algorithms for optimizing timeliness performance in information-update systems. A recently proposed metric called age-of-information or simply “age”, will be employed as a key metric to study timeliness performance. First, this research investigates the impact of channel coding on timeliness of information transmitted over a lossy channel. Second, this research studies the problem of age minimization under a bounded staleness constraint in a new setting where information can be partitioned into multiple disjoint units with partial updates. Finally, this research introduces a new Pull model where the destination sends queries to the sources to pull information of interest and proposes using replication schemes to optimize timeliness performance.

Broader Impacts

1. Gamal Sallam (Graduate Research Assistant) received Temple University Summer 2020 Doctoral Dissertation Completion Grant.

2. Fengjiao Li (Graduate Research Assistant, female) received the Scott Hibbs Future of Computing Award in Spring 2020.

3. Andrew Posmontier (Undergraduate Research Assistant) participated in the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Temple University in Fall 2019.

4. Gamal Sallam (Graduate Research Assistant) received the College of Science and Technology Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award in Fall 2019.

5. Gamal Sallam (Graduate Research Assistant) attended IEEE ICNP 2019 and presented his work at the conference.

6. Jenna Ryan (Undergraduate Research Assistant, female) was selected to represent the Temple REU Site at the National Council on Undergraduate Research Conference to present her REU project results in Fall 2019.

7. Fengjiao Li (Graduate Research Assistant, female) gave a talk at the College of Science and Technology Graduate Research Mixer event in Fall 2019. The purpose of the event is to increase inter-departmental collaboration through new and innovative interdisciplinary projects.

8. Fengjiao Li (female), Zhongdong Liu, and Yanlong Qiu (Graduate Research Assistants) participated in the Start Talking Science event in Fall 2019, which is a free public event where STEM researchers present posters detailing their research to a general audience, including local K-12 students in the greater Philadelphia area. This event aims to foster insightful conversations and connections and increase public interest in the cutting-edge research taking place right here in Philadelphia.

9. Hoang Ho (Undergraduate Research Assistant, female) joined University of Massachusetts Amherst as a PhD student in Fall 2019.

10. Aamir Mandviwalla (Undergraduate Research Assistant) joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a PhD student in Fall 2019.

11. Chelsea Zackey (Undergraduate Research Assistant, female) joined Temple University as a Master's student in Fall 2019.

12. Keita Ohshiro (Undergraduate Research Assistant) joined New York University as a Master's student in Fall 2019.

13. Jenna Ryan (Undergraduate Research Assistant, female) received the third-place prize at Temple University NSF REU Site Research Symposium in Summer 2019.

14. Fengjiao Li (female), Zhongdong Liu, and Yanlong Qiu (Graduate Research Assistants) attended the 2019 IMACCS Workshop in Columbus, OH and presented their posters. Chelsea Zackey (Undergraduate Research Assistant, female) also attended the workshop.

15. Fengjiao Li (Graduate Research Assistant, female) attended IEEE INFOCOM 2019 and presented her work at the conference. Fengjiao received the Best-in-Session Presentation Award for her excellent presentation. Her paper also received the IEEE INFOCOM 2019 Best Paper Award.

16. Zhongdong Liu (Graduate Research Assistant) attended IEEE ICC 2019 and presented his work at the conference.

17. Gamal Sallam (Graduate Research Assistant) received the Department of Computer and Information Sciences Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award in Spring 2019.

18. Keita Ohshiro (Undergraduate Research Assistant) received the Scott Hibbs Future of Computing Award from College of Science and Technology at Temple University in Spring 2019.

19. Keita Ohshiro (Undergraduate Research Assistant) participated in the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Temple University and presented a poster in Fall 2018. Keita also appeared in the final list for receiving awards.

20. Keita Ohshiro (Undergraduate Research Assistant) participated in the Start Talking Science event in Fall 2018, which is a free public event where STEM researchers present posters detailing their research to a general audience, including local K-12 students in the greater Philadelphia area. This event aims to foster insightful conversations and connections and increase public interest in the cutting-edge research taking place right here in Philadelphia.

21. Aamir Mandviwalla (Undergraduate Research Assistant) attended the 5th National Symposium for NSF REU Research in Data Science, Systems, and Security in December 2018 and presented his work at the conference.

22. Yeahuay Wu (Undergraduate Research Assistant, female) joined University of Massachusetts Amherst as a PhD student in Fall 2018.

23. Fengjiao Li (female), Zhongdong Liu, and Gamal Sallam (Graduate Research Assistants) attended the 2018 IMACCS Workshop in Columbus, OH.

24. Gamal Sallam (Graduate Research Assistant) attended IEEE INFOCOM 2018 and presented his work at the conference. Gamal received the Best-in-Session Presentation Award for his excellent presentation.

Publications

1. Z. Liu, L. Huang, B. Li, and B. Ji, “Anti-Aging Scheduling in Single-Server Queues: A Systematic and Comparative Study,” Journal of Communications and Networks, under review.

2. F. Li, Y. Sang, Z. Liu, B. Li, H. Wu, and B. Ji, “Waiting but not Aging: Age-of-Information and Utility Optimization Under the Pull Model,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), under review. [Technical Report (arXiv)]

3. F. Li, J. Liu, and B. Ji, “Combinatorial Sleeping Bandits with Fairness Constraints,” IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, accepted, November 2019. (Invited Fast Track Submission) [Technical Report (arXiv)]

4. Z. Liu and B. Ji, “Towards the Tradeoff Between Service Performance and Information Freshness,” Proceedings of IEEE ICC 2019, Shanghai, China, May 2019. [Technical Report (arXiv)]

5. F. Li, J. Liu, and B. Ji, “Combinatorial Sleeping Bandits with Fairness Constraints,” Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM 2019, Paris, France, April/May 2019. [Technical Report (arXiv)] (Best Paper Award; Best-in-Session Presentation Award)

6. N. Lu, B. Ji, B. Li, “Age-based Scheduling: Improving Data Freshness for Wireless Real-Time Traffic,” Proceedings of ACM MobiHoc 2018, Los Angeles, California, June 2018. [PDF]

7. Y. Sang, B. Li, and B. Ji, “The Power of Waiting for More than One Response in Minimizing the Age-of-Information,” IEEE GLOBECOM 2017, Singapore, December 2017. [Technical Report (arXiv)]