Impact of N-Policy on Quality of Service for Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have attracted attention from both academia and industry since the late 90\u27s. Recent advancements in the technology of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), the fields of digital electronics, and in wireless communication have resulted in the reductions of both the size and cost of sensor nodes. Even so, there are still some constraints on the performance of WSNs. The two most important constraints are the limited power supply in the sensor nodes and the difficulty in recharging or replacing their batteries. Therefore, reducing the energy consumption of Pensor nodes and optimizing the lifetime of WSNs are crucial. Wireless sensor networks have explored many new protocols, various approaches have been taken to design energy-efficient wireless sensor networks (EEWSNs). In this work, we conducted research on a packet queueing management model that offers different quality of services for packets coming from different sources. This model also incorporate N-policy to minimize excessive switching of transmission radio to conserve battery energy. In our daily life, we often experience waiting in a queue to receive some kind of service. Some customers do not join the queue at the end like other normal customers, and try to cut in the queue hoping to have a shorter waiting time and a higher level of satisfaction. This behavior is called customer interjection. First-come- first-served (FCFS) service discipline is usually assumed in public places like restaurants, banks, airports, and supermarkets. However, customer interjections can still be seen in these places. These interjections can affect the waiting time of other customers in queue. Such interjections may reduce the waiting time of interjecting customers, but increase the waiting time and of others. To control a queueing system, implementing a priority mechanism is a sensible approach. For example, at the airport, customers are categorized in to VIP and general customers. VIP customer has shorter lines and tailored services where as general customer usually stand in line longer and process takes longer to finish too. Priority queue management becomes more important in telecommunication systems also in computer systems (e.g. operating systems) they have been exploited for a long time. Priority queueing control is also used in other production practices. In this research we proposed a queue management model that has a priority queue and a normal queue at the same time. Our proposed model will service priority packets first then turn around to process normal packet until both queues are empty then turn off the radio. This seemingly simple design yields a complex set of balance equations. After solving all the equations with the help of probability generating functions we got the expected queue length for two queues

Measuring the underlying causes of long waiting times and the barriers to implementing recommendations to reduce waiting times, at a public sector primary health care facility in Cape Town

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM)Long waiting times before receiving a health service, give rise to long queues and congested health facilities, both of which are unnecessary and avoidable. Since patients in part judge the quality of the service by the length of time they spent waiting for it, it is imperative to measure waiting times, and determine and mitigate the immediate and underlying causes of lengthy waits. The facility under investigation was known to have excessively long waiting times. Since the immediate causes of long waiting times were known, it was thus required to research and understand the underlying causes of long waiting times and consequently whether there were any barriers to implementing recommendations to reduce waiting times at this primary health care facility. AIM: The aim of the study was to determine the underlying causes of long waiting times and the barriers to implementing recommendations to reduce waiting times. METHODS: A quantitative cross-sectional analytical study with a small qualitative component was undertaken. The qualitative study took a workshop format by piggy-backing onto feedback sessions held to present the results of the previously conducted waiting time survey to staff. Staff commentary at the workshops on possible underlying causes and barriers to recommendations to reduce them, were then used to develop a questionnaire for the quantitative portion of the study. The population and sample for the qualitative part of the study were all staff working at the facility who attended the feedback sessions. The cross-sectional descriptive quantitative study intended to uncover what underlying causes affected long waiting times, what recommendations could be explored to mitigate long waiting times and improve the patient experience, and if there were any barriers to these recommendations. The quantitative study population and sample were all staff who worked at the facility for more than six months and all patients who had utilised the services at the facility for three or more times. Data was collected using structured questionnaires, which were different for staff and patients. A detailed descriptive analysis was conducted

Measuring the underlying causes of long waiting times and the barriers to implementing recommendations to reduce waiting times, at a public sector primary health care facility in Cape Town

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM)Long waiting times before receiving a health service, give rise to long queues and congested health facilities, both of which are unnecessary and avoidable. Since patients in part judge the quality of the service by the length of time they spent waiting for it, it is imperative to measure waiting times, and determine and mitigate the immediate and underlying causes of lengthy waits. The facility under investigation was known to have excessively long waiting times. Since the immediate causes of long waiting times were known, it was thus required to research and understand the underlying causes of long waiting times and consequently whether there were any barriers to implementing recommendations to reduce waiting times at this primary health care facility. Aim: The aim of the study was to determine the underlying causes of long waiting times and the barriers to implementing recommendations to reduce waiting times. Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional analytical study with a small qualitative component was undertaken. The qualitative study took a workshop format by piggy-backing onto feedback sessions held to present the results of the previously conducted waiting time survey to staff. Staff commentary at the workshops on possible underlying causes and barriers to recommendations to reduce them, were then used to develop a questionnaire for the quantitative portion of the study. The population and sample for the qualitative part of the study were all staff working at the facility who attended the feedback sessions. The cross-sectional descriptive quantitative study intended to uncover what underlying causes affected long waiting times, what recommendations could be explored to mitigate long waiting times and improve the patient experience, and if there were any barriers to these recommendations. The quantitative study population and sample were all staff who worked at the facility for more than six months and all patients who had utilised the services at the facility for three or more times. Data was collected using structured questionnaires, which were different for staff and patients. A detailed descriptive analysis was conducted. Results: The study found a number of potential underlying causes for each immediate cause of long waiting times at the facility. For early morning batching the underlying causes found were: 45% of patients were given early appointments which caused clients to arrive early; 100% of patients with appointments after 10H00 arrived before 10H00; and 43% of the patients stated that they arrived early because they feared being turned away

Adaptive monitoring and control framework in Application Service Management environment

The economics of data centres and cloud computing services have pushed hardware and software requirements to the limits, leaving only very small performance overhead before systems get into saturation. For Application Service Management–ASM, this carries the growing risk of impacting the execution times of various processes. In order to deliver a stable service at times of great demand for computational power, enterprise data centres and cloud providers must implement fast and robust control mechanisms that are capable of adapting to changing operating conditions while satisfying service–level agreements. In ASM practice, there are normally two methods for dealing with increased load, namely increasing computational power or releasing load. The first approach typically involves allocating additional machines, which must be available, waiting idle, to deal with high demand situations. The second approach is implemented by terminating incoming actions that are less important to new activity demand patterns, throttling, or rescheduling jobs. Although most modern cloud platforms, or operating systems, do not allow adaptive/automatic termination of processes, tasks or actions, it is administrators’ common practice to manually end, or stop, tasks or actions at any level of the system, such as at the level of a node, function, or process, or kill a long session that is executing on a database server. In this context, adaptive control of actions termination remains a significantly underutilised subject of Application Service Management and deserves further consideration. For example, this approach may be eminently suitable for systems with harsh execution time Service Level Agreements, such as real–time systems, or systems running under conditions of hard pressure on power supplies, systems running under variable priority, or constraints set up by the green computing paradigm. Along this line of work, the thesis investigates the potential of dimension relevance and metrics signals decomposition as methods that would enable more efficient action termination. These methods are integrated in adaptive control emulators and actuators powered by neural networks that are used to adjust the operation of the system to better conditions in environments with established goals seen from both system performance and economics perspectives. The behaviour of the proposed control framework is evaluated using complex load and service agreements scenarios of systems compatible with the requirements of on–premises, elastic compute cloud deployments, server–less computing, and micro–services architectures

The development of economic and business news on Australian television.

Television is the favoured news source for most Australians and is regarded as having the potential to influence public opinion. From its inception however, television has been regarded as ill-suited to cover economic and business issues because of a perceived reliance on visual material and an inability to deal with complex issues. This tyranny of vision has been mitigated by technological developments such as electronic news gathering (ENG) and satellites that provide large amounts of varied material as well as improvements in production tools that assist the visual presentation of abstract concepts. The presentation of complex issues has also been enhanced by the increased skills and knowledge among newsworkers. Economic and business news has become a staple in television news programs and has evolved from ritualised reporting of data such as market indices and exchange rates to a genre that shares broader news values such as consequence, conflict, proximity, human interest, novelty, prominence, political controversy and scandal. Economic and business news also shares the normal imperatives of television such as a strong reliance on scheduled occasions and reliable and prolific sources. In between occasions of economic, business and political controversy or scandal, these programs are able to rely on a steady supply of economic, business and investment information. Dedicated economic and business segments and programs and now even whole channels meet two sets of demands. One is those of niche audiences seeking news and information on economic and business conditions, economic debate and policy making, the activities of economic and business leaders and an opportunity to hear and observe economic and business leaders. The other is from broadcasters seeking to maximise their profits by attracting viewers in the AB demographic (those with the greatest disposal income) to otherwise poorly-performing time slots, by broadcasters seeking an inexpensive and dependable supply of programming material and by broadcasters seeking to promote their institutional role and specific programs through presenting material that is followed up by other media. Economic and business reports however, continue to portray issues in a limited way that neglects business’s interaction with workers and the larger social environment. Economic events are often framed as political competition. These reports present a hierarchy of sources and privilege political and business elites. Television news favours debate that is presented by individuals as contrasting causal narratives. Political and economic sources have become adept at presenting brief causal narratives in response to the requirements of television. This approach highlights celebrities and favours the promotion of agency over structure. The increase in total economic and business reporting boosts the interdependence of television and political and economic sources. Technological development is continuing and traditional free-to-air television audiences are being eroded by pay television and the internet. Although these are altering the nature of political, economic and business debate their overall influence is difficult to determine

Morrison's Miracle

This book, the 17th in the federal election series and the ninth sponsored by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, provides a comprehensive account of the 2019 Australian election, which resulted in the surprise victory of the Coalition under Scott Morrison. It brings together 36 contributors who analyse voter behaviour, campaign strategies, regional variations, polling, ideology, media and the new importance of memes and digital campaigning. Morrison’s victory underlined the continuing trend toward the personalisation of politics and the loss of trust in political institutions, both in Australia and across western democracies. Morrison’s Miracle is indispensable for understanding the May 2019 Coalition victory, which surprised many observers and confounded pollsters and political pundits