User-centric data dissemination in disruption tolerant networks

Data dissemination is useful for many applications of Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTNs). Current data dissemination schemes are generally network-centric ignoring user interests. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for user-centric data dissemination in DTNs, which considers satisfying user interests and maximizes the cost-effectiveness of data dissemination. Our approach is based on a social centrality metric, which considers the social contact patterns and interests of mobile users simultaneously, and thus ensures effective relay selection. The performance of our approach is evaluated from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. By formal analysis, we show the lower bound on the cost-effectiveness of data dissemination, and analytically investigate the tradeoff between the effectiveness of relay selection and the overhead of maintaining network information. By trace-driven simulations, we show that our approach achieves better cost-effectiveness than existing data dissemination schemes.