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What constitutes a useful experimental result?

What constitutes a useful experimental result?. Ratul Mahajan Microsoft Research. On experimental vs. theoretical research. “It is the hand that shapes the head, not the other way around.” -- translation from a Marathi haiku (thanks to Jitu Padhye).

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What constitutes a useful experimental result?

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  1. What constitutes a useful experimental result? Ratul Mahajan Microsoft Research

  2. On experimental vs. theoretical research • “It is the hand that shapes the head, not the other way around.” • -- translation from a Marathi haiku • (thanks to Jitu Padhye)

  3. Neither hardware nor market realities limit experimental results severely • Yes, both are constraining • Yes, both represent moving targets • But, no reason to be paralyzed • Often, there are ways to skirt these limitations • E.g., leveraging broadcast capability, software radios

  4. Instead, it is poorly specified applicability context • Does a given result apply in a different setting? • Can be hard for even good experimental results • It is a problem common to other fields • E.g., network measurement, cancer research

  5. Context should be captured at all layers • PHY • BPSK vs. QAM-64 for ANC and SIC • Binary vs. gray loss patterns for routing • MAC • Transmit rate adaptation for opportunistic routing • The extent of collisions for rate adaptation • Network (topology) • Mesh vs. infrastructure for hidden terminals

  6. Context should be captured at all layers (2) • Transport • TCP vs. UDP for performance • Application • Bursty vs. always-on for network coding • Environment • Interference-free or interference-ridden • Mobility

  7. More on capturing context • Exactly what should be captured? • More detail is better but that has its limits • Should reproducibility be the goal? • Should practical approximations be OK? • May usefully expand applicability • “Applicability considerations” in papers?

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