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Multi-hop line networks have emerged as an important abstract model for modern and increasingly dense communication networks. In addition, the growth of real-time and mission-critical services has created high demand for and increased research interest in low-latency communications. The combination of these facts motivates a new investigation of data transmission schemes for -hop line networks from a delay-vs-throughput perspective. To this end, this work defines a metric called the delay amplification factor for a target throughput , denoted by , which characterizes the growth rate of the (asymptotic) delay with respect to the number of hops. We show that all existing relay schemes, e.g., Decode-&-Forward (DF), have , which is consistent with the decades-old perception that delay grows linearly with respect to . We then design a scheme satisfying , if the …