Busy period analysis of the level dependent PH/PH/1/K queue

In this paper, we study the transient behavior of a level dependent PH/PH/1/K queue during the busy period. We derive in closed-form the joint transform of the length of the busy period, the number of customers served during the busy period, and the number of losses during the busy period. We differentiate between two types of losses: the over°ow losses that are due to a full queue and the losses due to an admission controller. For the M/PH/1/K, M/PH/1/K under a threshold policy, and PH/M/1/K queues we determine simple expressions for their joint transfor

The asymptotic variance of departures in critically loaded queues

We consider the asymptotic variance of the departure counting process D(t) of the GI/G/1 queue; D(t) denotes the number of departures up to time t. We focus on the case that the system load rho equals 1, and prove that the asymptotic variance rate satisfies lim_t Var D(t)/t = lambda (1 - 2/pi) (c_a2 + c_s2) where lambda is the arrival rate and c_a2 and c_s2 are squared coefficients of variation of the inter-arrival and service times respectively. As a consequence, the departures variability has a remarkable singularity in case rho equals 1, in line with the BRAVO effect (Balancing Reduces Asymptotic Variance of Outputs) which was previously encountered in the finite-capacity birth-death queues. Under certain technical conditions, our result generalizes to multi-server queues, as well as to queues with more general arrival and service patterns. For the M/M/1 queue we present an explicit expression of the variance of D(t) for any t

Delay in a tandem queueing model with mobile queues : an analytical approximation

In this paper, we analyze the end-to-end delay performance of a tandem queueing system with mobile queues. Due to state-space explosion there is no hope for a numerical exact analysis for the joint-queue length distribution. For this reason, we present an analytical approximation that is based on queue length analysis. Through extensive numerical validation, we find that the queue length approximation exhibits excellent performance for light and moderate traffic load

Transdermal patches: Design and current approaches to painless drug delivery

Use of transdermal patches can evade many issues associated with oral drug delivery, such as first-pass hepatic metabolism, enzymatic digestion attack, drug hydrolysis and degradation in acidic media, drug fluctuations, and gastrointestinal irritation. This article reviews various transdermal patches available in the market, types, structural components, polymer role, and the required assessment tools. Although transdermal patches have medical applications for smoking cessation, pain relief, osteoporosis, contraception, motion sickness, angina pectoris, and cardiac disorders, advances in formulation development are ongoing to make transdermal patches capable of delivering more challenging drugs. Transdermal patches can be tailored and developed according to the physicochemical properties of active and inactive components, and applicability for long-term use. Therefore, a number of chemical approaches and physical techniques for transdermal patch development are under investigation

Corrigendum to “Effects of Lipoic Acid Supplementation on Activities of Cyclooxygenases and Levels of Prostaglandins E 2

Background. Our aim was to evaluate the protective effect of lipoic acid (LA) on fetal outcome of diabetic mothers. Methods. Diabetes was induced in female rats using streptozotocin and rats were made pregnant. Pregnant control (group 1; n=9; and group 2; n=7) or pregnant diabetic (group 3; n=10; and group 4; n=8) rats were treated daily with either LA (groups 2 and 4) or vehicle (groups 1 and 3) between gestational days 0 and 15. On day 15 of gestation, the fetuses, placentas, and membranes were dissected, examined morphologically, and then homogenized, to measure cyclooxygenase (COX) activities and metabolisms of prostaglandin (PG) E2 (PGEM) and PGF2α (PGFM) levels. The level of total glutathione was measured in the maternal liver and plasma and in all fetuses. Results. Supplementation of diabetic rats with LA was found to significantly (p<0.05) reduce resorption rates in diabetic rats and led to a significant (p<0.05) increase in liver, plasma, and fetuses total glutathione from LA-TD rats as compared to those from V-TD. Decreased levels of PGEM and elevated levels of PGFM in the fetuses, placentas, and membranes were characteristic of experimental diabetic gestation associated with malformation. The levels of PGEM in malformed fetuses from LA-TD mothers was significantly (p<0.05) higher than those in malformed fetuses from V-TD rats. Conclusions. LA treatment did not completely prevent the occurrence of malformations. Thus, other factors may be involved in the pathogenesis of the diabetes-induced congenital malformations

Effects of Lipoic Acid Supplementation on Activities of Cyclooxygenases and Levels of Prostaglandins E 2 and F 2 Metabolites, in the Offspring of Rats with Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes

Background. Our aim was to evaluate the protective effect of lipoic acid (LA) on fetal outcome of diabetic mothers. Methods. Diabetes was induced in female rats using streptozotocin and rats were made pregnant. Pregnant control (group 1; = 9; and group 2; = 7) or pregnant diabetic (group 3; = 10; and group 4; = 8) rats were treated daily with either LA (groups 2 and 4) or vehicle (groups 1 and 3) between gestational days 0 and 15. On day 15 of gestation, the fetuses, placentas, and membranes were dissected, examined morphologically, and then homogenized, to measure cyclooxygenase (COX) activities and metabolisms of prostaglandin (PG) E 2 (PGEM) and PGF 2 (PGFM) levels. The level of total glutathione was measured in the maternal liver and plasma and in all fetuses. Results. Supplementation of diabetic rats with LA was found to significantly ( &lt; 0.05) reduce resorption rates in diabetic rats and led to a significant ( &lt; 0.05) increase in liver, plasma, and fetuses total glutathione from LA-TD rats as compared to those from V-TD. Decreased levels of PGEM and elevated levels of PGFM in the fetuses, placentas, and membranes were characteristic of experimental diabetic gestation associated with malformation. The levels of PGEM in malformed fetuses from LA-TD mothers was significantly ( &lt; 0.05) higher than those in malformed fetuses from V-TD rats. Conclusions. LA treatment did not completely prevent the occurrence of malformations. Thus, other factors may be involved in the pathogenesis of the diabetesinduced congenital malformations

Integrated planning of spare parts and service engineers with partial backlogging

In this paper, we consider the integrated planning of resources in a service maintenance logistics system in which spare parts supply and service engineers deployment are considered simultaneously. The objective is to determine close-to-optimal stock levels as well as the number of service engineers that minimize the total average costs under a maximum total average waiting time constraint. When a failure occurs, a spare part and a service engineer are requested for the repair call. In case of a stock-out at spare parts inventory, the repair call will be satisfied entirely via an emergency channel with a fast replenishment time but at a high cost. However, if the requested spare part is in stock, the backlogging policy is followed for engineers. We model the problem as a queueing network. An exact method and two approximations for the evaluation of a given policy are presented. We exploit evaluation methods in a greedy heuristic procedure to optimize this integrated planning. In a numerical study, we show that for problems with more than five types of spare parts it is preferable to use approximate evaluations as they become significantly faster than exact evaluation. Moreover, approximation errors decrease as problems get larger. Furthermore, we test how the greedy optimization heuristic performs compared to other discrete search algorithms in terms of total costs and computation times. Finally, in a rather large case study, we show that we may incur up to 27% cost savings when using the integrated planning as compared to a separated optimization. , The Author(s).This publication was made possible by the NPRP award [NPRP 7-308-2-128] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of The Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.Scopu

An adaptive delayed acknowledgment strategy to improve TCP performance in multi-hop wireless networks.

In multi-hop wireless networks, transmission control protocol (TCP) suffers from performance deterioration due to poor wireless channel characteristics. Earlier studies have shown that the small TCP acknowledgments consume as much wireless resources as the long TCP data packets. Moreover, generating an acknowledgment (ACK) for each incoming data packet reduces the performance of TCP. The main factor affecting TCP performance in multi-hop wireless networks is the contention and collision between ACK and data packets that share the same path. Thus, lowering the number of ACKs using the delayed acknowledgment option defined in IETF RFC 1122 will improve TCP performance. However, large cumulative ACKs will induce packet loss due to retransmission time-out at the sender side of TCP. Motivated by this understanding, we propose a new TCP receiver with an adaptive delayed ACK strategy to improve TCP performance in multi-hop wireless networks. Extensive simulations have been done to prove and evaluate our strategy over different topologies. The simulation results demonstrate that our strategy can improve TCP performance significantly