Praise for the Third Edition: "This is one of the best books available. Its excellent organizational structure allows quick reference to specific models and its clear presentation . . . solidifies the understanding of the concepts being presented."IIE Transactions on Operations EngineeringThoroughly revised and expanded to reflect the latest developments in the field, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, Fourth Edition continues to present the basic statistical principles that are necessary to analyze the probabilistic nature of queues. Rather than presenting a narrow focus on the subject, this update illustrates the wide-reaching, fundamental concepts in queueing theory and its applications to diverse areas such as computer science, engineering, business, and operations research.This update takes a numerical approach to understanding and making probable estimations relating to queues, with a comprehensive outline of simple and more advanced queueing models. Newly featured topics of the Fourth Edition include:Retrial queuesApproximations for queueing networksNumerical inversion of transformsDetermining the appropriate number of servers to balance quality and cost of serviceEach chapter provides a self-contained presentation of key concepts and formulae, allowing readers to work with each section independently, while a summary table at the end of the book outlines the types of queues that have been discussed and their results. In addition, two new appendices have been added, discussing transforms and generating functions as well as the fundamentals of differential and difference equations. New examples are now included along with problems that incorporate QtsPlus software, which is freely available via the book's related Web site.With its accessible style and wealth of real-world examples, Fundamentals of Queueing Theory, Fourth Edition is an ideal book for courses on queueing theory at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners who analyze congestion in the fields of telecommunications, transportation, aviation, and management science.

Fundamentals of Queueing Theory

Since the first time the term "Virtual Reality" (VR) has been used back in the 60s, VR has evolved in different manners becoming more and more similar to the real world. Two different kinds of VR can be identified: non-immersive and immersive. The former is a computer-based environment that can simulate places in the real or imagined worlds; the latter takes the idea even further by giving the perception of being physically present in the non-physical world. While non-immersive VR can be based on a standard computer, immersive VR is still evolving as the needed devices are becoming more user friendly and economically accessible. In the past, there was a major difficulty about using equipment such as a helmet with goggles, while now new devices are being developed to make usability better for the user. VR, which is based on three basic principles: Immersion, Interaction, and User involvement with the environment and narrative, offers a very high potential in education by making learning more motivating and engaging. Up to now, the use of immersive-VR in educational games has been limited due to high prices of the devices and their limited usability. Now new tools like the commercial "Oculus Rift", make it possible to access immersive-VR in lots of educational situations. This paper reports a survey on the scientific literature on the advantages and potentials in the use of Immersive Virtual Reality in Education in the last two years (2013-14). It shows how VR in general, and immersive VR in particular, has been used mostly for adult training in special situations or for university students. It then focuses on the possible advantages and drawbacks of its use in education with reference to different classes of users like children and some kinds of cognitive disabilities (with particular reference to the Down syndrome). It concludes outlining strategies that could be carried out to verify these ideas.

A literature review on immersive virtual reality in education: state of the art and perspectives

As preservers of history and the objects that others leave behind, it is easy to get distracted by a desire for those objects to be “perfect.” We worry about every little tear, stain or blemish, and we want nothing more than to return objects to their "original state." However, so many times those rough spots are part of the item’s history. It is important to understand the difference between the types of condition issues on objects that cause structural issues versus those that are purely cosmetic. Knowing and identifying these differences can help when determining whether or not an item requires conservation or deciding simple factors like the best way to store or exhibit an item.

Facebook“卖流量”新招

The boom in the capabilities and features of mobile devices, like smartphones, tablets, and wearables, combined with the ubiquitous and affordable Internet access and the advances in the areas of cooperative networking, computer vision, and mobile cloud computing transformed mobile augmented reality (MAR) from science fiction to a reality. Although mobile devices are more constrained computationalwise from traditional computers, they have a multitude of sensors that can be used to the development of more sophisticated MAR applications and can be assisted from remote servers for the execution of their intensive parts. In this paper, after introducing the reader to the basics of MAR, we present a categorization of the application fields together with some representative examples. Next, we introduce the reader to the user interface and experience in MAR applications and continue with the core system components of the MAR systems. After that, we discuss advances in tracking and registration, since their functionality is crucial to any MAR application and the network connectivity of the devices that run MAR applications together with its importance to the performance of the application. We continue with the importance of data management in MAR systems and the systems performance and sustainability, and before we conclude this survey, we present existing challenging problems.

Mobile Augmented Reality Survey: From Where We Are to Where We Go

A survey on service function chaining

Multimedia cloud, as a specific cloud paradigm, addresses how cloud can effectively process multimedia services and provide QoS provisioning for multimedia applications. There are two major challenges in multimedia cloud. The first challenge is the service response time in multimedia cloud, and the second challenge is the cost of cloud resources. In this paper, we optimize resource allocation for multimedia cloud based on queuing model. Specifically, we optimize the resource allocation in both single-class service case and multiple-class service case. In each case, we formulate and solve the response time minimization problem and resource cost minimization problem, respectively. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed optimal allocation scheme can optimally utilize the cloud resources to achieve a minimal mean response time or a minimal resource cost.

Optimal resource allocation for multimedia cloud based on queuing model

Multimedia cloud is an emerging computing paradigm that can effectively process multimedia applications and provide multi-QoS provisions for customers. Two major challenges exist in multimedia cloud: the resource cost and the service response time. In this paper, we employ the proposed queuing model to optimize the resource allocation for multimedia cloud in priority service scheme. Specifically, we formulate and solve the resource cost minimization problem and the service response time minimization problem respectively. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed optimal resource allocation method can greatly enhance the performance of multimedia cloud data center in terms of resource cost and service response time.

Optimal resource allocation for multimedia cloud in priority service scheme

Queueing model based resource optimization for multimedia cloud

With the emergence of cloud computing, cloud-based multimedia applications have been increasingly adopted in recent years. There are two major challenges for multimedia application providers: the round trip time (RTT) requirement and the resource cost. In this paper, we study the virtual machine (VM) allocation problem for multimedia application providers to minimize the resource cost under RTT requirements. Specifically, we propose the optimal VM allocation schemes for single-site cloud and multi-site cloud, respectively. Moreover, we propose the greedy algorithms to efficiently allocate VMs in each case. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed optimal VM allocation schemes can optimally allocate VMs to achieve a minimal resource cost.

Optimal allocation of virtual machines for cloud-based multimedia applications

The cloud based multimedia applications have been widely adopted in recent years. Due to the large-scale and time-varying workload, an effective workload scheduling scheme is becoming a challenge faced by multimedia application providers. In this paper, we study the workload scheduling schemes for multimedia cloud. Specifically, we examine and solve the response time minimization problem and the resource cost minimization problem, respectively. Moreover, we propose a greedy algorithm to efficiently schedule workload for practical multimedia cloud. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed workload scheduling schemes can optimally balance workload to achieve the minimal response time or the minimal resource cost for multimedia application providers.

Xiaoming Nan

Papers

Optimal resource allocation for multimedia cloud based on queuing model

Optimal resource allocation for multimedia cloud in priority service scheme

Queueing model based resource optimization for multimedia cloud

Optimal allocation of virtual machines for cloud-based multimedia applications

Optimization of workload scheduling for multimedia cloud computing