+
+\noindent The WSN area of interest is, in a first step, divided into regular
+homogeneous subregions using a divide-and-conquer algorithm. In a second step
+our protocol will be executed in a distributed way in each subregion
+simultaneously to schedule nodes' activities for one sensing period.
+
+As shown in figure~\ref{fig2}, node activity scheduling is produced by our
+protocol in a periodic manner. Each period is divided into 4 stages: Information
+(INFO) Exchange, Leader Election, Decision (the result of an optimization
+problem), and Sensing. For each period there is exactly one set cover
+responsible for the sensing task. Protocols based on a periodic scheme, like
+LiCO, are more robust against an unexpected node failure. On the one hand, if
+node failure is discovered before taking the decision, the corresponding sensor
+node will not be considered by the optimization algorithm, and, on the other
+hand, if the sensor failure happens after the decision, the sensing task of the
+network will be temporarily affected: only during the period of sensing until a
+new period starts, since a new set cover will take charge of the sensing task in
+the next period. The energy consumption and some other constraints can easily be
+taken into account since the sensors can update and then exchange their
+information (including their residual energy) at the beginning of each period.
+However, the pre-sensing phases (INFO Exchange, Leader Election, and Decision)
+are energy consuming, even for nodes that will not join the set cover to monitor
+the area.
+
+\begin{figure}[t!]