{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,17]],"date-time":"2026-02-17T06:04:40Z","timestamp":1771308280447,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":19,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,13]],"date-time":"2026-02-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1770940800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["12561058"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["12561058"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["12261012"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["12261012"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In the traditional (H,r,M,N) combination network, a central server storing N files communicates with K=(Hr) users through H cache-less relays. Each user has a local cache of size M files and is connected to a distinct subset of r relays. This paper studies the (H,r,L,\u039b,M,N) combination network with multi-access caching, where \u039b cache nodes (each of size M files) are available and each user can access L cache nodes. We show that in the regime H\u2265\u039b and r\u2265L, an achievable design can be obtained via a group-wise operation, which reduces the scheme design within each group to an effective (\u039b,L,L,\u039b,M,N) instance. For the case \u039b=H and L=r, we further propose an explicit coded caching scheme constructed via two array-based representations (a cache-node placement array and a user-retrieve array) and a derived combinatorial placement delivery array (CPDA) based on the Maddah-Ali\u2013Niesen (MN) placement strategy. Numerical comparisons using the user-retrievable cache ratio as the evaluation metric indicate that the proposed scheme approaches the converse bound of the traditional combination network, and the performance gap diminishes as the cache ratio increases.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e28020220","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,13]],"date-time":"2026-02-13T16:09:32Z","timestamp":1770998972000},"page":"220","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Combination Network with Multiaccess Caching"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"28","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0000-1925-6338","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bowen","family":"Zheng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Education Blockchain and Intelligent Technology, Ministry of Education, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yifei","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Lab of Education Blockchain and Intelligent Technology, Ministry of Education, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, China"},{"name":"School of Science, Guilin University of Aerospace Technology, Guilin 541004, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Dianhua","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Guangxi Key Lab of Multi-Source Information Mining and Security, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004, China"},{"name":"The Center for Applied Mathematics of Guangxi, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541006, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Maddah-Ali, M.A., and Niesen, U. (2013, January 7\u201312). Fundamental limits of caching. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Istanbul, Turkey.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISIT.2013.6620392"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Wan, K., Tuninetti, D., and Piantanida, P. (2016, January 11\u201314). On the optimality of uncoded cache placement. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW), Cambridge, UK."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1281","DOI":"10.1109\/TIT.2017.2785237","article-title":"The Exact Rate-Memory Tradeoff for Caching with Uncoded Prefetching","volume":"64","author":"Yu","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory"},{"key":"ref_4","first-page":"5821","article-title":"On the placement delivery array design for centralized coded caching scheme","volume":"63","author":"Yan","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4166","DOI":"10.1109\/TCOMM.2019.2901686","article-title":"Constructions of Coded Caching Schemes with Flexible Memory Size","volume":"67","author":"Cheng","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Commun."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1370","DOI":"10.1109\/TCOMM.2019.2962028","article-title":"Some Variant of Known Coded Caching Schemes with Good Performance","volume":"68","author":"Cheng","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Commun."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3422","DOI":"10.1109\/TCOMM.2019.2896960","article-title":"A Generalized Grouping Scheme in Coded Caching","volume":"67","author":"Cheng","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Commun."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7121","DOI":"10.1109\/TIT.2021.3112492","article-title":"A Framework of Constructing Placement Delivery Arrays for Centralized Coded Caching","volume":"67","author":"Cheng","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wang, J., Cheng, M., Wan, K., and Caire, G. (July, January 26). A Novel Framework for Coded Caching via Cartesian Product with Reduced Subpacketization. Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Espoo, Finland.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISIT50566.2022.9834638"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"849","DOI":"10.1109\/TIT.2015.2504556","article-title":"Fundamental Limits of Caching in Wireless D2D Networks","volume":"62","author":"Ji","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3212","DOI":"10.1109\/TIT.2016.2557804","article-title":"Hierarchical Coded Caching","volume":"62","author":"Karamchandani","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7253","DOI":"10.1109\/TIT.2016.2614722","article-title":"Multi-Server Coded Caching","volume":"62","author":"Shariatpanahi","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory"},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ji, M., Wong, M.F., Tulino, A.M., Llorca, J., Caire, G., Effros, M., and Langberg, M. (1, January 28). On the fundamental limits of caching in combination networks. 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Caching in Combination Networks: Novel Multicast Message Generation and Delivery by Leveraging the Network Topology. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kansas City, MO, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICC.2018.8422197"},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wan, K., Jit, M., Piantanida, P., and Tuninetti, D. (2018, January 17\u201322). On the Benefits of Asymmetric Coded Cache Placement in Combination Networks with End-User Caches. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Vail, CO, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISIT.2018.8437462"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yan, Q., Wigger, M., and Yang, S. (2018, January 17\u201322). Placement Delivery Array Design for Combination Networks with Edge Caching. 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Commun."}],"container-title":["Entropy"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/28\/2\/220\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,17]],"date-time":"2026-02-17T05:12:24Z","timestamp":1771305144000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1099-4300\/28\/2\/220"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,13]]},"references-count":19,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,2]]}},"alternative-id":["e28020220"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/e28020220","relation":{},"ISSN":["1099-4300"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1099-4300","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,13]]}}}