Abstract: In peer-to-peer (P2P) communications, it has been recognized herein that various context information needs to be exchanged between peer devices (PDs) or between different layers/protocols within a peer device (PD). Various embodiments described herein address how to design effective management functions, services, and primitives for context management across and/or within different protocol layers to enable context-aware peer-to-peer communications in proximity. This disclosure proposes multiple embodiments for cross-layer context management in context-aware peer-to-peer communication in proximity. For example, embodiments described herein provide context management to efficiently enable context-aware P2P communications, such as, for example, social networks.

Abstract: Systems and methods may integrate acknowledgments, such as application-level acknowledgments and medium access control layer acknowledgments. In an embodiment of a cross-layer acknowledgment method, a medium access control layer acknowledgment and application-layer acknowledgment may be integrated as a single medium access control layer acknowledgment. In an embodiment of a cross-application acknowledgment method, an application-layer acknowledgment for a first application and application-layer acknowledgment for a second application may be integrated into a single medium access control layer frame.