Polling systems are queueing systems consisting of multiple queues served by a single server. In this paper we analyze two types of preemptive time-limited polling systems, the so-called pure and exhaustive time-limited disciplines. In particular, we derive a direct relation for the evolution of the joint queue length during the course of a server visit. The analysis of the pure time-limited discipline builds on and extends several known results for the transient analysis of an M/G/1 queue. For the analysis of the exhaustive discipline we derive several new results for the transient analysis of the M/G/1 queue during a busy period. The final expressions for both types of polling systems that we obtain generalize previous results by incorporating customer routeing, generalized service times, batch arrivals, and Markovian polling of the server.

Consider a one-sided Markov additive process with an upper and a lower barrier, where each can be either reflecting or terminating. For both defective and nondefective processes, and all possible scenarios, we identify the corresponding potential measures, which help to generalize a number of results for one-sided Lévy processes. The resulting rather neat formulae have various applications in risk and queueing theories, and, in particular, they lead to quasistationary distributions of the corresponding processes.

Time-domain characterization of a microstrip patch antenna with circular corner truncation to achieve polarization reconfigurability is presented. By applying zero bias, forward bias, and reverse bias to the four PIN diodes, the antenna can radiate with linear polarization (LP), right hand circular polarization (RHCP), and left hand circular polarization (LHCP). The circular cuts reduce centre-frequency shift from linear to circularly polarized states, compared with conventional straight cuts. Time-domain simulation and measurement are carried out to show the switching characteristics of the proposed antenna, and it is established that satisfactory switching speed can be obtained using a simple low-cost driver circuit.

With (Qt)t denoting the stationary workload process in a queue fed by a Lévy input process (Xt)t, this paper focuses on the asymptotics of rare event probabilities of the type P(Q0 > pB, QTB > qB) for given positive numbers p and q, and a positive deterministic function TB. We first identify conditions under which the probability of interest is dominated by the ‘most demanding event’, in the sense that it is asymptotically equivalent to P(Q > max{p, q}B) for large B, where Q denotes the steady-state workload. These conditions essentially reduce to TB being sublinear (i.e. TB/B → 0 as B → ∞). A second condition is derived under which the probability of interest essentially ‘decouples’, in that it is asymptotically equivalent to P(Q > pB)P(Q > qB) for large B. For various models considered in the literature, this ‘decoupling condition’ reduces to requiring that TB is superlinear (i.e. TB / B → ∞ as B → ∞). This is not true for certain ‘heavy-tailed’ cases, for instance, the situations in which the Lévy input process corresponds to an α-stable process, or to a compound Poisson process with regularly varying job sizes, in which the ‘decoupling condition’ reduces to TB / B2 → ∞. For these input processes, we also establish the asymptotics of the probability under consideration for TB increasing superlinearly but subquadratically. We pay special attention to the case TB = RB for some R > 0; for light-tailed input, we derive intuitively appealing asymptotics, intensively relying on sample path large deviations results. The regimes obtained can be interpreted in terms of the most likely paths to overflow.

We derive several algorithms for the busy period distribution of the canonical Markovian fluid flow model. One of them is similar to the Latouche-Ramaswami algorithm for quasi-birth-death models and is shown to be quadratically convergent. These algorithms significantly increase the efficiency of the matrix-geometric procedures developed earlier by the authors for the transient and steady-state analyses of fluid flow models.

We propose in this paper two methods to compute Markovian bounds for monotone functions of a discrete time homogeneous Markov chain evolving in a totally ordered state space. The main interest of such methods is to propose algorithms to simplify analysis of transient characteristics such as the output process of a queue, or sojourn time in a subset of states. Construction of bounds are based on two kinds of results: well-known results on stochastic comparison between Markov chains with the same state space; and the fact that in some cases a function of Markov chain is again a homogeneous Markov chain but with smaller state space. Indeed, computation of bounds uses knowledge on the whole initial model. However, only part of this data is necessary at each step of the algorithms.

Convergence results are given for transient characteristics of an M/M/∞ system such as the period of time the occupation process remains above a given state, the area swept by this process above this state and the number of customers arriving during this period. These results are precise in contrast to approximations derived in the framework of the Poisson clumping heuristic introduced by Aldous.

Rubino and Sericola (1989c) derived expressions for the mth sojourn time distribution associated with a subset of the state space of a homogeneous irreducible Markov chain for both the discrete- and continuous-parameter cases. In the present paper, it is shown that a suitable probabilistic reasoning using absorbing Markov chains can be used to obtain respectively the probability mass function and the cumulative distribution function of the joint distribution of the first m sojourn times. A concise derivation of the continuous-time result is achieved by deducing it from the discrete-time formulation by time discretization. Generalizing some further recent results by Rubino and Sericola (1991), the joint distribution of sojourn times for absorbing Markov chains is also derived. As a numerical example, the model of a fault-tolerant multiprocessor system is considered.

In this paper we find the waiting time distribution in the transient domain and the busy period distribution of the GI G/1 queue. We formulate the problem as a two-dimensional Lindley process and then transform it to a Hilbert factorization problem. We achieve the solution of the factorization problem for the GI/R/1, R/G/1 queues, where R is the class of distributions with rational Laplace transforms. We obtain simple closed-form expressions for the Laplace transforms of the waiting time distribution and the busy period distribution. Furthermore, we find closed-form formulae for the first two moments of the distributions involved.

We analyze a stable GI/G/1 queue that starts operating at time t = 0 with N0 ≠ 0 customers. First, we analyze the time required for this queue to empty for the first time. Under the assumption that both the interarrival and the service time distributions are of the exponential type, we prove that , where λ and μ are the arrival and the service rates. Furthermore, assuming in addition that the interarrival time distribution is of the non-lattice type, we show that the settling time of the queue is essentially equal to N0/(μ –λ); that is, we prove that where is the total variation distance between the distribution of the number of customers in the system at time t and its steady-state distribution. Finally, we show that there is a similarity between the queue we analyze and a simple fluid model.

Sojourn times of Markov processes in subsets of the finite state space are considered. We give a closed form of the distribution of the nth sojourn time in a given subset of states. The asymptotic behaviour of this distribution when time goes to infinity is analyzed, in the discrete time and the continuous-time cases. We consider the usually pseudo-aggregated Markov process canonically constructed from the previous one by collapsing the states of each subset of a given partition. The relation between limits of moments of the sojourn time distributions in the original Markov process and the moments of the corresponding holding times of the pseudo-aggregated one is also studied.

The exact solution for the transient distribution of the queue length and busy period of the M/M/1 queue in terms of modified Bessel functions has been proved in a variety of ways. Methods of the past range from spectral analysis (Lederman and Reuter (1954)), combinatorial arguments (Champernowne (1956)), to generating functions coupled with Laplace transforms (Clarke (1956)). In this paper, we present a novel approach that ties the computation of these transient distributions directly to the random sample path behavior of the M/M/1 queue. The use of Laplace transforms is minimized, and the use of generating functions is eliminated completely. This is a method that could prove to be useful in developing a similar transient analysis for queueing networks.