In this work we provide sufficient conditions for the arrival times of a renewal process so that the number of its events occurring before a randomly distributed time, T, independent of the process preserves the aging properties of T.

In this article we will derive some results for characterizing the almost closed sets of a face-homogeneous random walk. We will present a conjecture on the relation between discrete scattering of the fluid limit and the absence of nonatomic almost closed sets. We will illustrate the conjecture with random walks with both simple and nonsimple decomposition into almost closed sets.

Motivated by the patient triage problem in emergency response, we consider a single-server clearing system in which jobs might abandon the system if they are not taken into service within their “lifetime.” In this system, jobs are characterized by their lifetime and service time distributions. Our objective is to dynamically determine the optimal or near-optimal order of service for jobs so as to minimize the total number of abandonments. We first show that if the jobs can be ordered in such a way that the job with the shortest lifetime (in the sense of hazard rate ordering) also has the shortest service time (in the sense of likelihood ratio ordering), then the optimal policy gives the highest priority to this “time-critical” job independently of the system state. For the case in which the jobs with shorter lifetimes have longer service times, we observed that the optimal policy generally has a complex structure that might depend on the type and number of jobs available. For this case, we provide partial characterizations of the optimal policy and obtain sufficient conditions under which a state-independent policy is optimal. Furthermore, we develop two state-dependent heuristic policies, and by means of a numerical study, we show that these heuristics perform well, especially when jobs abandon the system at a relatively faster rate when compared to service rates. Based on our analytical and numerical results, we develop several insights on patient triage in the immediate aftermath of a mass casualty event. For example, we conclude that in a worst-case scenario, where medical resources are overwhelmed with a large number of casualties who need immediate attention, it is crucial to implement state-dependent policies such as the heuristic policies proposed in this article.

A system is operating as an M/M/∞ queue. However, when it becomes empty, it is assigned to perform another task, the duration U of which is random. Customers arriving while the system is unavailable for service (i.e., occupied with a U-task) become impatient: Each individual activates an “impatience timer” having random duration T such that if the system does not become available by the time the timer expires, the customer leaves the system never to return. When the system completes a U-task and there are waiting customers, each one is taken immediately into service. We analyze both multiple and single U-task scenarios and consider both exponentially and generally distributed task and impatience times. We derive the (partial) probability generating functions of the number of customers present when the system is occupied with a U-task as well as when it acts as an M/M/∞ queue and we obtain explicit expressions for the corresponding mean queue sizes. We further calculate the mean length of a busy period, the mean cycle time, and the quality of service measure: proportion of customers being served.

In this article we investigate less restrictive conditions on the model parameters that enable one to establish the likelihood ratio ordering of one generalized order statistic by conditioning on the right tail of another lower-indexed generalized order statistic. One application of the main results is also presented.

In the present article we provide a formula that facilitates the evaluation of the signature of a reliability structure by a generating function approach. A simple sufficient condition is also derived for proving the nonpreservation of the IFR property for the system's lifetime (when the components are IFR) by exploiting the signature of the system. As an application of the general results, we deduce recurrence relations for the signature of a linear consecutive k-out-of-n: F system. We establish a simple relation between the signature of a linear and a circular system and investigate the IFR preservation property under the formulation of such systems.

Consider a tandem queuing network with an infinite supply of jobs in front of the first station, infinite room for completed jobs after the last station, finite buffers between stations, and a number of flexible servers who are subject to failures. We study the dynamic assignment of servers to stations with the goal of maximizing the long-run average throughput. Our main conclusion is that the presence of server failures does not have a major impact on the optimal assignment of servers to stations for the systems we consider. More specifically, we show that when the servers are generalists, any nonidling policy is optimal, irrespective of the reliability of the servers. We also provide theoretical and numerical results for Markovian systems with two stations and two or three servers that suggest that the structure of the optimal server assignment policy does not depend on the reliability of the servers and that ignoring server failures when assigning servers to stations yields near-optimal throughput. Finally, we present numerical results that illustrate that simple server assignment heuristics designed for larger systems with reliable servers also yield good throughput performance in Markovian systems with three stations and three failure-prone servers.

In this article we consider an insurance company selling life insurance policies. New policies are sold at random points in time, and each policy stays active for an exponential amount of time with rate μ, during which the policyholder pays premiums continuously at rate r. When the policy expires, the insurance company pays a claim of random size. The aim is to compute the probability of eventual ruin starting with a given number of policies and a given level of insurance fund. We establish the remarkable result that the ruin probability is identical to the one in the standard compound Poisson model where the insurance fund increases at constant rate r and claims occur according to a Poisson process with rate μ.

We derive a simple recursion to compute moments of arbitrary order of the duration of busy periods of MX/G/1/n systems starting with an arbitrary number of customers in the system.

We model the weight (e.g., delay, distance, or cost) from an arbitrary node to the nearest (in weight) peer in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The exact probability generating function and an asymptotic analysis is presented for a random graph with independent and identically distributed exponential link weights. The asymptotic distribution function is a Fermi–Dirac distribution that frequently appears in statistical physics. The good agreement with simulation results for relatively small P2P networks makes the asymptotic formula for the probability density function useful for estimating the minimal number of peers to offer an acceptable quality (delay or latency).

In this article we discuss fairness in queues, view it in the context of social justice at large, and survey the recently published research work and publications dealing with the issue of measuring fairness of queues. The emphasis is placed on the underlying principles of the different measurement approaches, on reviewing their methodology, and on examining their applicability and intuitive appeal. Some quantitative results are also presented.

The article has three major parts (sections) and a short concluding discussion. In the first part we discuss fairness in queues and its importance in the broader context of the prevailing conception of social justice at large, and the distinction between fairness of the queue and fairness at large is illuminated. The second part is dedicated to explaining and discussing three main properties expected of a fairness measure: conformity to the general concept of social justice, granularity, and intuitive appeal and rationality. The third part reviews the fairness of the queue evaluating and measuring approaches proposed and studied in recent years. We describe the underlying principles of the different approaches, present some of their results, and review them in context of the three main properties expected from a measure. The short discussion that follows centers on future research issues.

We consider the classical coupon collector's problem in which each new coupon collected is type i with probability pi; ∑i=1npi=1. We derive some formulas concerning N, the number of coupons needed to have a complete set of at least one of each type, that are computationally useful when n is not too large. We also present efficient simulation procedures for determining P(N > k), as well as analytic bounds for this probability.

To determine optimal investment and maintenance decisions, the total costs should be minimized over the whole life of a system or structure. In minimizing life-cycle costs, it is important to account for the time value of money by discounting and to consider the uncertainties involved. This article presents new results in renewal theory with costs that can be discounted according to any discount function that is nonincreasing and monotonic over time (such as exponential, hyperbolic, generalized hyperbolic, and no discounting). The main results include expressions for the first and second moment of the discounted costs over a bounded and unbounded time horizon as well as asymptotic expansions for nondiscounted costs.

Data on the Internet is sent by packets that go through a network of routers. A router drops packets either when its buffer is full or when it uses the Active Queue Management. Currently, the majority of the Internet routers use a simple Drop Tail strategy. The rate at which a user injects the data into the network is determined by transmission control protocol (TCP). However, most connections in the Internet consist only of few packets, and TCP does not really have an opportunity to adjust the sending rate. Thus, the data flow generated by short TCP connections appears to be some uncontrolled stochastic process. In the present work we try to describe the interaction of the data flow generated by short TCP connections with a network of finite buffers. The framework of retrial queues and networks seems to be an adequate approach for this problem. The effect of packet retransmission becomes essential when the network congestion level is high. We consider several benchmark retrial network models. In some particular cases, an explicit analytic solution is possible. If the analytic solution is not available or too entangled, we suggest using a fixed-point approximation scheme. In particular, we consider a network of one or two tandem M/M/1/K-type queues with blocking and with an M/M/1/∞-type retrial (orbit) queue. We explicitly solve the models with particular choices of K, derive stability conditions for K≥1, and present several graphs based on numerical results.

We consider the virtual queuing time (vqt, also known as work-in-system, or virtual-delay) process in an M/G/s queue with impatient customers. We focus on the vqt-based balking model and relate it to reneging behavior of impatient customers in terms of the steady-state distribution of the vqt process. We construct a single-server system, analyze its operating characteristics, and use them to approximate the multiserver system. We give both analytical results and numerical examples. We conduct simulation to assess the accuracy of the approximation.

Single-server queues in which the server takes vacations arise naturally as models for a wide range of computer, communication, and production systems. In almost all studies on vacation models, the vacation lengths are assumed to be independent of the arrival, service, workload, and queue length processes. In the present study, we allow the length of a vacation to depend on the length of the previous active period (viz. the period since the previous vacation). Under rather general assumptions regarding the offered work during active periods and vacations, we determine the steady-state workload distribution, both for single and multiple vacations. We conclude by discussing several special cases, including polling models, and relate our findings to results obtained earlier.

We use induction to derive the distribution of the waiting time of the ith waiting customer in a busy period for a G/M/1 queue with a first come–first serve service. A trivial implication gives the law for the ith waiting time in a busy period for a G/M/c queue. Finally, we use the Lindley recursion to relate our results to the distribution of random walks.

We consider two multiclass discriminatory process sharing (DPS)-like time-shared M/G/1 queuing systems in which the weight assigned to a customer is a function of its class as well as (1) the attained service of the customer in the first system and (2) the residual processing time of the customer in the second system. We study the asymptotic slowdown, the ratio of expected sojourn time to the service requirement, of customers with very large service requirements. We also provide various results dealing with ordering of conditional mean sojourn times of any two given classes. We also show that the sojourn time of an arbitrary customer of a particular class in the standard DPS system (static weights) with heavy-tailed service requirements has a tail behavior similar to that of a customer from the same class that starts a busy period.

The lifetime of a system of connected units under some natural assumptions can be represented as a random variable Y defined as a weighted lattice polynomial of random lifetimes of its components. As such, the concept of a random variable Y defined by a weighted lattice polynomial of (lattice-valued) random variables is considered in general and in some special cases. The central object of interest is the cumulative distribution function of Y. In particular, numerous results are obtained for lattice polynomials and weighted lattice polynomials in the case of independent arguments and in general. For the general case, the technique consists in considering the joint probability generating function of “indicator” variables. A connection is studied between Y and order statistics of the set of arguments.