Polling Systems and Their Application to Telecommunication Networks

The paper presents a review of papers on stochastic polling systems published in 2007–2020. Due to the applicability of stochastic polling models, the researchers face new and more complicated polling models. Stochastic polling models are effectively used for performance evaluation, design and optimization of telecommunication systems and networks, transport systems and road management systems, traffic, production systems and inventory management systems. In the review, we separately discuss the results for two-queue systems as a special case of polling systems. Then we discuss new and already known methods for polling system analysis including the mean value analysis and its application to systems with heavy load to approximate the performance characteristics. We also present the results concerning the specifics in polling models: a polling order, service disciplines, methods to queue or to group arriving customers, and a feedback in polling systems. The new direction in the polling system models is an investigation of how the customer service order within a queue affects the performance characteristics. The results on polling systems with correlated arrivals (MAP, BMAP, and the group Poisson arrivals simultaneously to all queues) are also considered. We briefly discuss the results on multi-server, non-discrete polling systems and application of polling models in various fields.

Strategic Behavior of Customers and Optimal Control for Batch Service Polling Systems with Priorities

During the past few years, batch service systems have attracted considerable attention due to their wide area of applications. In this present paper, we study a special batch service polling system (the so-called Israeli queue) with priorities. Different from the previous papers which focus on the performance analysis, we aim to investigate the strategic behavior of customers and optimal design for the underlying queueing model. By considering two levels of information (observable and unobservable) provided upon customers’ arrival, we, respectively, derive the equilibrium strategies of high-priority and low-priority customers, regarding the joining or balking dilemma. We also present some numerical examples to reveal the impacts of several parameters on the equilibrium strategies, together with some intuitive explanations. Finally, we formulate the revenue function of the service provider and present the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm to seek the optimal service prices for the high-priority and low-priority customers to maximize the service provider’s revenue under the two levels of information.

Transient analysis for exponential time-limited polling models under the preemptive repeat random policy

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.

Is the News Cycle “Real”?

This chapter features a game from the Shin Megami Tensei series called Persona 5. This chapter examines how the case of role playing video game Persona 5 depicts agenda setting through the use of an in-game audience-oriented polling systems and comment system in order to understand to a greater degree the ways in which games contribute to our understanding of media processes and explores the idea of fandom as integral to the agenda setting process. The case chapter addressed in this manuscript represents a unique narrative featuring a daily life simulator, a turn-based Japanese role-playing game (JRPG), and complex in-game media vehicles to drive the story.