323 research outputs found
Load Balancing in the Non-Degenerate Slowdown Regime
We analyse Join-the-Shortest-Queue in a contemporary scaling regime known as
the Non-Degenerate Slowdown regime. Join-the-Shortest-Queue (JSQ) is a
classical load balancing policy for queueing systems with multiple parallel
servers. Parallel server queueing systems are regularly analysed and
dimensioned by diffusion approximations achieved in the Halfin-Whitt scaling
regime. However, when jobs must be dispatched to a server upon arrival, we
advocate the Non-Degenerate Slowdown regime (NDS) to compare different
load-balancing rules.
In this paper we identify novel diffusion approximation and timescale
separation that provides insights into the performance of JSQ. We calculate the
price of irrevocably dispatching jobs to servers and prove this to within 15%
(in the NDS regime) of the rules that may manoeuvre jobs between servers. We
also compare ours results for the JSQ policy with the NDS approximations of
many modern load balancing policies such as Idle-Queue-First and
Power-of--choices policies which act as low information proxies for the JSQ
policy. Our analysis leads us to construct new rules that have identical
performance to JSQ but require less communication overhead than
power-of-2-choices.Comment: Revised journal submission versio
Stein's Method for the Single Server Queue in Heavy Traffic
Following recent developments in the application of Stein's method in
queueing theory, this paper is intended to be a short treatment showing how
Stein's method can be developed and applied to the single server queue in heavy
traffic. Here we provide two approaches to this approximation: one based on
equilibrium couplings and another involving comparison of generators.Comment: 11 pages. To appear in Statistics and Probability Letters, 2019
Detecting Markov Chain Instability: A Monte Carlo Approach
We devise a Monte Carlo based method for detecting whether a non-negative
Markov chain is stable for a given set of parameter values. More precisely, for
a given subset of the parameter space, we develop an algorithm that is capable
of deciding whether the set has a subset of positive Lebesgue measure for which
the Markov chain is unstable. The approach is based on a variant of simulated
annealing, and consequently only mild assumptions are needed to obtain
performance guarantees.
The theoretical underpinnings of our algorithm are based on a result stating
that the stability of a set of parameters can be phrased in terms of the
stability of a single Markov chain that searches the set for unstable
parameters. Our framework leads to a procedure that is capable of performing
statistically rigorous tests for instability, which has been extensively tested
using several examples of standard and non-standard queueing networks
Closed queueing networks under congestion: non-bottleneck independence and bottleneck convergence
We analyze the behavior of closed product-form queueing networks when the
number of customers grows to infinity and remains proportionate on each route
(or class). First, we focus on the stationary behavior and prove the conjecture
that the stationary distribution at non-bottleneck queues converges weakly to
the stationary distribution of an ergodic, open product-form queueing network.
This open network is obtained by replacing bottleneck queues with per-route
Poissonian sources whose rates are determined by the solution of a strictly
concave optimization problem. Then, we focus on the transient behavior of the
network and use fluid limits to prove that the amount of fluid, or customers,
on each route eventually concentrates on the bottleneck queues only, and that
the long-term proportions of fluid in each route and in each queue solve the
dual of the concave optimization problem that determines the throughputs of the
previous open network.Comment: 22 page
Making art explicit: knowledge, reason and art history in the art and design curriculum
Different and competing conceptions of knowledge have recently been the focus of debate in education, especially art education. The cognitive science conception of knowledge as information processing and storage in long term memory is especially prominent in educational policy. By contrast, within writing that is directly about art education, discussion of knowledge has often been framed in negative, terms, as reductive, as entailing the imposition of rigid subject content and as antithetical to art. Taking issue with both these contrasting views, and using a non-empirical, philosophical approach, this article puts forward a case for the centrality of knowledge and reasoning within the art and design curriculum. Specifically, the article draws on inferentialism, a theory that has not previously been applied to art education. The argument presented understands art as discursive and rational, as concept using and reason sensitive, as essentially a disjunctive set of historical-social practices. Art education is then best thought of as a rational-critical introduction to knowing those practices, as making explicit their proprieties, entailments and contradictions and the choices that are thereby made possible. This view emphasises learning in art and design as developing increasing levels of responsibility and commitment by integrating concepts in practice and theory
Designing Coalition-Proof Reverse Auctions over Continuous Goods
This paper investigates reverse auctions that involve continuous values of
different types of goods, general nonconvex constraints, and second stage
costs. We seek to design the payment rules and conditions under which
coalitions of participants cannot influence the auction outcome in order to
obtain higher collective utility. Under the incentive-compatible
Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism, we show that coalition-proof outcomes are
achieved if the submitted bids are convex and the constraint sets are of a
polymatroid-type. These conditions, however, do not capture the complexity of
the general class of reverse auctions under consideration. By relaxing the
property of incentive-compatibility, we investigate further payment rules that
are coalition-proof without any extra conditions on the submitted bids and the
constraint sets. Since calculating the payments directly for these mechanisms
is computationally difficult for auctions involving many participants, we
present two computationally efficient methods. Our results are verified with
several case studies based on electricity market data
- …