# Freshness on Demand: Optimizing Age of Information for the Query Process

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.00917 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00917/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 2 Nov 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Agent-driven Generative Semantic Communication with Cross-Modality and Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06997/) (2024)
- [Integrated Push-and-Pull Update Model for Goal-Oriented Effective Communication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14092/) (2024)
- [Pull-Based Query Scheduling for Goal-Oriented Semantic Communication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06725/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Age of Information (AoI) has become an important concept in communications, as it allows system designers to measure the freshness of the information available to remote monitoring or control processes. However, its definition tacitly assumed that new information is used at any time, which is not always the case and the instants at which information is collected and used are dependent on a certain query process. We propose a model that accounts for the discrete time nature of many monitoring processes, considering a pull-based communication model in which the freshness of information is only important when the receiver generates a query. We then define the Age of Information at Query (QAoI), a more general metric that fits the pull-based scenario, and show how its optimization can lead to very different choices from traditional push-based AoI optimization when using a Packet Erasure Channel (PEC).