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The forthcoming era of industrialization is marked by intelligent production, with the manufacturing industry and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) driving the creation and innovation of new concepts and systems. One innovative solution addressing the demands of industrial settings is the time-slotted channel hopping (TSCH) protocol, known for its ultra-low power consumption and reliable communication. However, the scheduling mechanism at the core of TSCH requires substantial time for every node. In this study, we propose a sustainable scheduling method for Industrial IoT networks called Linguistic Interval Type 2 Fuzzy Logic System (LIT2FLS) based Priority Aware TSCH (LIT2FLPAS). The suggested method aims to promote service diversification to extend battery life and reduce delay. The significance of each node is determined by the LIT2FLS method, which allocates the required number of slots based on priority and the volume of generated traffic. We compare our proposed LIT2FLPAS algorithm with two state-of-the-art scheduling functions, Scheduling Function-Zero (SF0) and Low Latency Scheduling Function (LLSF). The results demonstrate that LIT2FLPAS exhibits superior adaptability compared to SF0 and LLSF. It provides collision-free communications and significantly enhances the duty cycle by 8%, battery life by 30.32%, and packet loss ratio by 95% while reducing latency by 75.69% and collisions by 91%. These findings underscore the effectiveness of the LIT2FLPAS algorithm in addressing the specific challenges of industrial IoT networks, offering improved performance metrics and robust communication in dynamic industrial environments. The proposed method presents a promising solution for achieving efficient and reliable communication in the evolving landscape of intelligent industrial production.

Based on the basic assumptions of Hotelling model, this paper studied the game of duopoly airlines with service difference. Through the division of different service situations, the static game model of duopoly airlines was established, the relationship between airfare and position, revenue and position, service quality level and unit loss cost were studied, and the mutual influence law between two airlines was obtained. At the same time, based on the duopoly static game model, a dynamic airfare game system was constructed, and the equilibrium solution and stability of the system were discussed through the knowledge of nonlinear dynamics. The influence of dynamic adjustment speed and variation of service cost coefficient on equilibrium airfare were obtained, and the branch chaos under different service conditions was studied. Finally, chaos control was adopted to intervene the unstable state of the system, which could effectively make the system return to stability. The results showed that the maximum or minimum differentiation position strategy adopted by airlines in static game depended on the parameter range. In addition, when the service cost coefficient increased, the service quality level would decline, so the value of service cost coefficient should be controlled reasonably. In dynamic game, the difference of initial airfares did not affect the final equilibrium airfares. On the premise of providing services, small service cost coefficient might easily led to chaos of the system. A small fluctuation of any parameter might change the stable state of the system. Therefore, under the premise of the rapid development of today's service industry, airlines should build brand characteristics and fully consider the influence of competition and service quality factors when pricing. Secondly, the stable area of control system was very important to maintain market order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper models and optimizes a two-sided market of shared parking where the parking sharing platform rents spare parking spaces from owners and provides them to parkers. Different parkers may derive a different utility or benefit from renting and using a parking space from the platform and their willingness-to-pay for the parking sharing service may differ. In this context, we consider that the platform can provide differentiated services to parkers, i.e., priority and normal services. The priority service will secure the rights to be matched with the parking supplies firstly, but may involve a higher service price. We model the parking supply–demand equilibrium for such a two-sided market with differentiated services and compare it against that under single-type (homogeneous) service. We also analyze how the supply–demand equilibrium varies with the platform's pricing strategies (service prices and rent paid to parking owners). Then, we discuss and compare the parking sharing platform's pricing strategies under different economic objectives (i.e., maximize net revenue or social benefit) and under different service structures (i.e., single-type service or differentiated services). We found that differentiated services can help improve platform revenue and social welfare. • This study models a two-sided market of shared parking with heterogeneous parkers. • This study models a parking sharing platform with single-type service or differentiated services. • This study examines the pricing strategies of both private and public operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a framework for developing a differentiated strategy for the delivery of services. It summarizes the methodology introduced in Guajardo and Cohen in (Manuf Serv Oper Manag 30(3):440–454, 2018 [6]) and discusses modeling and implementation implications associated with application of the framework for the management of value-added services that are bundled with manufactured products. The framework utilizes the concept of operating segments (introduced by Frei and Morriss in (Uncommon service: how to win by putting customers at the core of your business, 2012 [5])) and considers issues associated with the definition of market segments appropriate for differentiated services as well as for the design of such services. The paper also discusses operational processes and the tradeoffs associated with producing and delivering differentiated service products to market segments. This discussion includes a review of a set of representative analytical models for service delivery that illustrate OM Service research opportunities.

The decisions of whether and how to adopt service differentiation are at the core of a firm's service operations strategy. This paper proposes a framework for service differentiation that highlights the identification and use of operating segments as a central component in the delivery of differentiated services. The notion of operating segments and the general empirical methodology to identify them proposed in this paper integrally considers the consumer's preferences and operational capabilities required to fulfill the differentiated service offering. An application in the context of after-sales services for product-service bundles using data from a major manufacturer in the consumer electronics industry is presented, which illustrates how operational decisions need to be adjusted when multiple operating segments are defined to support a service differentiation strategy. Copyright:

In dealing with the challenges associated with water supply in urban low-income areas, water utilities are increasingly adopting service differentiation, which revolves around servicing different customer groups with different supply modalities. This article examines how such differentiation through the use of water kiosks and yard taps satisfies the water needs of consumers in low-income areas in three Kenyan cities. Based on an analysis of the reliability, affordability and accessibility of the water supplied, we conclude that while service differentiation has led to some improvements in access to piped connections in low-income areas, it also risks reinforcing the inequalities in access to water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increased usage of time-critical applications, the need for differentiation among service classes has become a major goal in research communities. Optical burst switching (OBS) is one of the most promising switching technologies to cope with heavy traffic diversity. To satisfy the bandwidth requirement in OBS networks, the recent literature suggests two efficient techniques: one is based on offset time and the other is on wavelength reservation. In this paper, we analyze the wavelength reservation based technique to support a given number of service classes. We describe a Markov model to estimate the blocking probabilities of various service classes. Simulation is conducted at one of the output ports of a core node to validate the model.

The property management services sector in China is developing rapidly, contributing significantly to employment and income. We have made recommendations for service differentiation and low costs so that even with limited resources, property management services can distribute their services effectively, reduce unnecessary costs, and implement an optimal plan. This study helps property management service providers understand the needs and expectations of customers because it is a key factor contributing to the success of the business. Based on the consumer and service quality (SERVQUAL) theories, this study applies the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method to construct a quality evaluation scale for property management service companies and determine key property management service items that are valued most by customers and operators in this sector. The results show that it is feasible to determine accurately factors that are used to quantify the competitiveness of the existing market and identify improvements to ensure a win–win situation for both customers and companies in this sector.

With the continuous development of intelligent manufacturing technology, the intelligent production line for the Industrial Internet of Things occupies an important position in the field of industrial intelligence. OPC UA is a standard for communication data exchange between intelligent production line devices. OPC UA can establish a unified information model for production line devices and improve the connectivity of heterogeneous networks. However, in industrial wireless network application scenarios, there are various types of sensing information and large amounts of data to be transmitted. Each type of data has different requirements for real-time. The traditional OPC UA communication method is difficult to achieve real-time and reliable transmission in intelligent production lines and can’t meet the transmission requirements of time-sensitive data. In this paper, we propose a real-time communication model of the OPC UA wireless network for intelligent production lines (UAMPDS). IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH is used as the wireless communication infrastructure, and OPC UA protocols are fused to this model. Meanwhile, we design a load-aware time-slot scheduling algorithm to dynamically allocate and schedule time slots according to the network topology and traffic load of each node. We also implement a dynamic preemptive resource scheduling strategy based on service differentiation to ensure real-time transmission of time-sensitive data. The experimental results show that this model achieves differentiated services based on data with different latency tolerance and effectively reduces the transmission latency of real-time service data under the constrained network resources. It can avoid the starvation phenomenon of low priority queues, and improves the overall quality of service of intelligent production line communication networks.

We study capacity rationing by servers facing differentiated customer classes using data from the Veterans Health Administration, which is the largest integrated healthcare system in the U.S. Using more than 11 million health encounters over two years in which the system was capacity constrained, our study provides a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of provider availability shocks on care channel diversion and delays. The outcomes studied include emergency room (ER) visits broken down by type, urgent care center visits, office and phone visits with one's own versus another provider, post-ER follow-up visits, and ER readmissions. Availability shocks in our analysis are a residualized measure characterizing weeks in which the provider has fewer (or more) office appointments than expected based on typical patterns. The main finding is that moving from two standard deviations above to two standard deviations below in availability shocks increases ER visits by 2.4%, or about 20,000 yearly ER visits. Interestingly, the increase in ER visits is only present for the non-emergent category, indicating differentiated service to emergent and non-emergent care requests; capacity-constrained providers still tend to the patients in most need. Another finding is that provider availability shocks delay and divert post-ER follow-up care. Yet there is no effect on ER readmissions, a severe outcome of delayed or foregone follow-up, indicating that providers ration by priority these follow-up appointments. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of privacy concerns on customers' purchasing decisions and service providers' pricing strategies in Smart-X systems. We develop profit maximisation models to test purchasing decisions and pricing strategies of advanced and basic services in monopoly and competitive markets. We find customers' privacy costs and service differentiation determine each service provider's pricing decision and their relative market position. In asymmetrical competition markets, service providers can only coexist when the degree of service differentiation is moderate. These findings have practical implications for the increasingly competitive global markets of specialised products that require pre- and post-purchase services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines differentiation as a business competitiveness strategy for improving business performance in the brewery industry the case of Les Brasseries Du Cameroun Bamenda. The case study design was employed using both qualitative and quantitative techniques to assess the hypothetical relationships stated. Questionnaire and interviews were used for data collection administered to a purposefully selected sample of 130 participants comprising of management staff at Les Brasseries Du Cameroun Bamenda as well as managers and staff at retail outlets/bars in Bamenda. Using Pearsons correlation coefficient as analytical technique, results showed that there is a strong positive relationship between product differentiation, and business performance (PCC = .804**, p 0.01), moderate positive relationship between service differentiation and business performance (PCC = .575**, p 0.01), and a weak positive relationship between physical differentiation and business performance (PCC = .264**, p 0.01). The study thus provides practical advice that management should continue to maintain and uphold product differentiation variable factors like quality and assortment while at the same step-up service differentiation activities.

Abstract Background The purpose of this study is to assess the influences of market structure on hospitals’ strategic decision to duplicate or differentiate services and to assess the relationship of duplication and differentiation to hospital performance. This study is different from previous research because it examines how a hospital decides which services to be duplicated or differentiated in a dyadic relationship embedded in a complex competitive network. Methods We use Linear Structural Equations (LISREL) to simultaneously estimate the relationships among market structure, duplicated and differentiated services, and performance. All non-federal, general acute hospitals in urban counties in the United States with more than one hospital are included in the sample (n = 1726). Forty-two high-tech services are selected for the study. Data are compiled from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals, Area Resource File, and CMS cost report files. State data from HealthLeaders-InterStudy for 2015 are also used. Results The findings provide support that hospitals duplicate and differentiate services relative to rivals in a local market. Size asymmetry between hospitals is related to both service duplication (negatively) and service differentiation (positively). With greater size asymmetry, a hospital utilizes its valuable resources for its own advantage to thwart competition from rivals by differentiating more high-tech services and reducing service duplication. Geographic distance is positively related to service duplication, with duplication increasing as distance between hospitals increases. Market competition is associated with lower service duplication. Both service differentiation and service duplication are associated with lower market share, higher costs, and lower profits. Conclusions The findings underscore the role of market structure as a check and balance on the provision of high-tech services. Hospital management should consider cutting back some services that are oversupplied and/or unprofitable and analyze the supply and demand in the market to avoid overdoing both service duplication and service differentiation.

With the increasing popularity of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), charging infrastructure becomes widely available and offers multiple services to PEV users. Each charging service has a distinct quality of service (QoS) level that matches user expectations. The charging service demand is interdependent, i.e., the demand for one service is often affected by the prices of others. Dynamic pricing of charging services is a coordination mechanism for QoS satisfaction of service classes. In this article, we propose a differentiated pricing mechanism for a multiservice PEV charging infrastructure (EVCI). The proposed framework motivates PEV users to avoid over-utilization of particular service classes. Currently, most of dynamic pricing schemes require full knowledge of the customer-side information; however, such information is stochastic, non-stationary, and expensive to collect at scale. Our proposed pricing mechanism utilizes model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) to learn and improve automatically without an explicit model of the environment. We formulate our framework to adopt the twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3) algorithm. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed RL-based differentiated pricing scheme can adaptively adjust service pricing for a multiservice EVCI to maximize charging facility utilization while ensuring service quality satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to test and analyze the influence of differentiate services and prices on consumer buying interest in Yudha Auto Matic Car Wash in Bandung. Along with the large number of vehicles in Indonesia, business opportunities in the automotive sector are increasingly wide open. This is used by many companies in developing a car wash service business. All compete for the sake of winning consumer confidence, so that every company needs to create differentiation in order to attract consumer interest and emphasize that the services they offer are the best different from competitors. But before making a decision, consumers tend to evaluate various things based on what they like and not, one of which is price. Because consumers only want to spend a budget according to their abilities. This type of research is descriptive and verificative, research data are primary data and secondary data, data collection techniques through questionnaires, research samples are 100 respondents, the sampling method uses non probability sampling with purposive sampling technique. The variable of this study consists of 1 dependent variable (Y), namely buying interest and 2 independent variables (X), namely service differentiation and price. This research was tested using validity test, reliability test, classic assumption test consisting of normality test, multicollinearity test, and heteroscedasticity test, correlation test, multiple linear regression, hypothesis testing consisting of T test and F test, and coefficient of determination. The results of multiple linear regression tests on buying interest show that service differentiation has an effect of 0.583, and prices have an influence of 0.437, while the simultaneous effect is 0.571. So it can be concluded that service differentiation variables and prices have a significant influence on buying interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic Scheduling to Differentiate Delay-Based Service Levels in Multiclass Service Systems Tail probability of delay (TPoD), defined as the probability that the customer delay exceeds a customary delay target, is widely used as a performance metric in many real-world service systems. Examples include the 80–20 rule in customer contact centers and the Canadian triage and acuity scale (CTAS) guideline that classifies patients in the emergency department into five acuity levels. In those settings, how to ensure that diverse customer needs are met based on prescribed TPoD targets via effective capacity planning and dynamic resource allocation has been deemed notoriously difficult. In response to such a challenge, in "Scheduling to Differentiate Service in a Multiclass Service System," Yunan Liu, Xu Sun, and Kyle Hovey study a practical queueing system having multiple customer classes, nonstationary customer arrivals, and customer abandonment. They devise a new class of staffing (number of servers) and scheduling (assigning newly idle servers to a waiting customer from one of the classes) policies that can help achieve class-differentiated service levels measured by TPoD. This newly proposed class of control rules not only exhibits nice separation of scales under appropriate heavy-traffic scaling, but also gives rise to novel heavy-traffic stochastic-process limits for delay-related performance measures. The effectiveness of their approach is substantiated by heavy-traffic asymptotic stability theorems and extensive numerical studies in which important managerial insights are also generated. Motivated by large-scale service systems, we study a multiclass queueing system having class-dependent service rates and heterogeneous abandonment distributions. Our objective is to devise proper staffing and scheduling schemes to achieve differentiated services for each class. Formally, for a class-specific delay target w i > 0 and threshold α i ∈ (0,1) , we concurrently determine an appropriate staffing level (number of servers) and a server-assignment rule (assigning newly idle servers to a waiting customer from one of the classes), under which the percentage of class-i customers waiting more than w i does not exceed α i . We tackle the problem under the efficiency-driven many-server heavy-traffic limiting regime, where both the demand volume and the number of servers grow proportionally to infinity. Our main findings are as follows: (a) class-level service differentiation is obtained by using a delay-based dynamic prioritization scheme; (b) the proposed scheduling rule achieves an important state-space collapse, in which all waiting time processes evolve as fixed proportions of a one-dimensional state-descriptor called the frontier process; (c) the frontier process solves a stochastic Volterra equation and is thus a non-Markovian process; (d) the proposed staffing-and-scheduling solution can be readily extended to time-varying settings. In this paper, we establish heavy-traffic limit theorems to show that our solution is asymptotically correct for large systems, and we numerically demonstrate that it performs reasonably well even for relatively small systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: In this paper, we develop an integrated framework to study a firm's joint decisions on product price, quality, and service duration in a variety of monopolistic and competitive scenarios. Academic/practical relevance: Product price, quality, and ancillary service (such as maintenance and factory warranty) are arguably among the most important factors consumers consider when making a purchase decision. Meanwhile, they are also seen as effective instruments for firms to achieve market segmentation. We consider a cost structure for a firm in which the service cost depends on the product quality level. In particular, if quality is associated with product reliability (respectively, complexity), the service cost would decrease (increase) in the quality level. Methodology: We adopt the widely used multinomial logit model and the nested logit model to study consumers' choice behavior and employ mixed-integer optimization and game theory to conduct analyses. Results: We find that with multiple substitutable products being offered, it is sufficient for a firm to provide only two maximally differentiated service durations at optimality. The quality of each product should be set at a level such that the marginal utility to consumers equals the marginal cost to the firm, independent of the decisions on other products, whereas the pricing decision should take into account all products. In addition, consumer surplus increases when the firm can make more decisions. Managerial implications: Regardless of product substitution and market competition, the optimal quality level and service duration for each product can be determined independently of other products. Moreover, service differentiation can benefit consumers and improve the firm's profitability at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aimed to study the differentiation that affects the competitiveness of transportation Micro, Small, & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Thailand. The sample population explored in this study consisted of 287 entrepreneurs from MSMEs from Thailand. The collected data were analyzed using Multiple Regression Analysis, along with additional feedback and opinion analysis. The results showed that differentiation in products, services, personnel, distribution channels, and brand image affect the competitiveness of MSMEs at a statistically significant level of 0.05. The areas of differentiation found with the greatest influence were personnel, products, and services respectively. Therefore, entrepreneurs and executives involved in differentiation of transportation MSMEs should focus on good service. Most of the businesses in Thailand are small businesses and have a small number of personnel. This enables thorough supervision of personnel from the business owners to ensure they provide good service to customers. Whereupon differentiation in product appearance by designing products or packaging to be outstanding, unique, attractive, and diverse. For example, processed fruit businesses may design their packaging to look like real fruit, or there could be environmentally friendly packaging designs which are popular among consumers today.

Background: The flexible boundaries of special districts allow for overlaps with each other that generate various specialized service bundles on a territorial basis. The combined overlapping boundaries may reveal willingness to have more services at additional costs as the special districts generally provide services selectively to those who reside within their boundaries. Objective: This study aims to investigate whether overlapping special districts sort citizens by income level as reflected by the Tiebout model. Methods: This study utilizes a cross‐sectional block group data of Ventura County in California, taking numbers of vertices of special districts as independent variable and household income as dependent variable. Results: Estimation result demonstrates that a greater number of specialized services is associated with higher income levels and varies by service type. Conclusion: Findings of this study imply that income segregation could be predetermined by jurisdictional boundary, and that other subjects of urban segregation may have similar pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increased usage of time-critical applications, the need for differentiation among service classes has become a major goal in research communities. Optical burst switching (OBS) is one of the most promising switching technologies to cope with heavy traffic diversity. To satisfy the bandwidth requirement in OBS networks, the recent literature suggests two efficient techniques: one is based on offset time and the other is on wavelength reservation. In this paper, we analyze the wavelength reservation based technique to support a given number of service classes. We describe a Markov model to estimate the blocking probabilities of various service classes. Simulation is conducted at one of the output ports of a core node to validate the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using various offset times to separate differential services is the most common form of service differentiation in optical burst switching networks. In this approach, a larger offset time is given to a higher priority burst, but it causes this burst to have a longer delay. One solution to this problem is to adjust the burst assembly time so that the buffering delay of the higher priority burst is always shorter than that of the lower priority burst. However, this adjustment causes another problem, called delay unfairness, for bursts with differential priorities that share the same path to their destination. This article proposes a new solution for delay fairness using the burst assembly.

Customer retrials commonly occur in many service systems, such as healthcare, call centers, mobile networks, computer systems, and inventory systems. However, because of their complex nature, retrial queues are often more difficult to analyze than queues without retrials. In "Reducing Delay in Retrial Queues by Simultaneously Differentiating Service and Retrial Rates", J. Wang, Z. Wang, and Y. Liu develop a service grade differentiation policy for queueing models with customer retrials. They show that the average waiting time can be reduced through strategically allocating the rates of service and retrial times without needing additional service capacity. Counter to the intuition that higher service variability usually yields a larger delay, the authors show that the benefits of this simultaneous service-and-retrial differentiation (SSRD) policy outweigh the impact of the increased service variability. To validate the effectiveness of the new SSRD policy, the authors provide (i) conditions under which SSRD is more beneficial, (ii) closed-form expressions of the optimal policy, (iii) asymptotic reduction of customer delays when the system is in heavy traffic, and (iv) insightful observations/discussions and numerical results. In this article, we introduce a service grade differentiation policy for queueing models with customer retrials. We show that the average waiting time can be reduced through strategically allocating the rates of service and retrial times without needing additional service capacity. Countering to the intuition that higher service variability usually yields a larger delay, we show that the benefits of our simultaneous service-and-retrial differentiation policy outweigh the impact of the increased service variability. We present a necessary and sufficient condition under which the proposed policy reduces the waiting time and a closed-form expression for the optimal allocation policy. In heavy traffic, our policy can asymptotically reduce both the delay and the number of customer retrials before entering service by a significant factor, which is a function of the ratio of the service rate to the retrial rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms often upgrade service level to enhance their profitability, which leads to competing firms at service disadvantages using behavior-based pricing (BBP) strategy to fight back. The interaction between service differentiation and BBP affects the profits of both competitors. In order to explore the impact of BBP on the competition of firms with service differentiation, we use game theory method to construct a two-period dynamic pricing model. We explore the optimal BBP strategy by comparing and analyzing firms sub-game equilibrium profits. The main conclusions are as follows: (ⅰ) the degree of service differentiation and the relative service cost interact to influence firms optimal pricing strategy. Specifically, when the degree of service differentiation is low (high) and the relative service cost is small (large), both firms do not adopt (adopt) BBP. When the degree of service differentiation is low (high) but the relative service cost is large (small), competing firms have mixed strategic Nash equilibrium, and both firms have a certain probability to adopt BBP. (ⅱ) BBP can help low-service firms to make up for the profits loss caused by the service disadvantage under certain conditions. However, it can lead to fierce price competition, which will damage the profits of both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the research was explaining of productivity of private clubs in Lorestan province based on service differentiation Methodology: The research method was Grounded theory with Glaser approach. Statistical population was experts (professors of sport management). The purposeful sampling method and theoretical saturation criterion in this method ended the number of interviews: the sampling method in targeted sampling technique was snowball / network. Results: 58 concepts were extracted during open coding. Of these codes, the value chain, network chain, and rapid transformation each had the highest number of referrals, with 16 categories at the central stage: 16 categories, exclusive access, dominant interfaces, proprietary standards, redefining customer experience with the club, integration Customer, horizontal alignment, low cost, differentiation, business mission, business executives, industry structure, competitive position, effectiveness, targeting, innovation, and executives business processes strategies extracted; Compliance Letters, Comprehensive Customer Solution, Best Product, Hand Executive procedures and adaptation processes were extracted. Conclusion: In order to benefit the private sports clubs, attention to issues such as best product delivery, comprehensive customer solution, system adherence, implementation guidelines and adaptation processes is of high executive importance which should be considered particularly in order to improvement the productivity of these clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matching supply with demand remains a challenging task for many companies, especially when purchasing and production must be planned with sufficient lead time, demand is uncertain, overall supply may not suffice to fulfill all of the projected demands, and customers differ in their level of importance. The particular structure of sales organizations often adds another layer of complexity: These organizations often have multi-level hierarchical structures that include multiple geographic sales regions, distribution channels, customer groups, and individual customers (e.g., key accounts). In this paper, we address the problem of "allocation planning" in such sales hierarchies when customer demand is stochastic, supply is scarce, and the company's objective is to meet individual customer groups' service-level targets. Our first objective is to determine when conventional allocation rules lead to optimal (or at least acceptable) results and to characterize their optimality gap relative to the theoretical optimum. We find that these popular rules lead to optimal results only under very restrictive conditions and that the loss in optimality is often substantial. This result leads us to pursue our second objective: to find alternative (decentral) allocation approaches that generate acceptable performance under conditions in which the conventional allocation rules lead to poor results. We develop two alternative (decentral) allocation approaches and derive conditions under which they lead to optimal allocations. Based on numerical analyses, we show that these alternative approaches outperform the conventional allocation rules, independent of the conditions under which they are used. Our results suggest that they lead to near-optimal solutions under most conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health Data Bank (HDB) as a type of health data service institution has become a promising third-party for mining the value behind the huge amounts of health data and providing valuable health data service to ordinary people. The customers' continuous contribution behavior is the key element of HDB's success and sustainable development. In this paper, we consider creditworthiness value as a measurement of a customer's contribution behavior. The customers' creditworthiness value is computed based on both the Authentic Behavior and Honest Behavior. Then, we propose a scheme Creditworthiness-based Service Differentiation (CBSD), in which the creditworthiness value is used as the guideline for differential service. The proposed scheme provides the right incentives for the customers to share their valid and authentic personal health data. And the simulation results confirm the ability of the proposed scheme to effectively reduce the health data service level provided to the customers with low creditworthiness value. On the other hand, good customers have a high probability of receiving better service. The shortcomings of the proposed scheme and the future work are concluded at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net neutrality has recently been heavily debated as a potential regulation of the Internet. This debate is centered around the argument whether the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be allowed to provide differentiated services over the Internet. Advocates of net neutrality have expressed concerns about the ISPs’ pricing power, which might be used to discriminate Content Providers (CPs), and consequently destroy innovations at the edge of the Internet and hurt users’ utilities. However, without service differentiation, ISPs do not have incentives to expand infrastructure capacities and provide quality of services, which will eventually impair the development of the future Internet. Although market competition among the ISPs would alleviate the problem and reduce the need for net neutrality regulations, the problem is more severe in monopolistic markets, e.g., rural access markets where natural monopolies exist due to high deployment costs and appropriate regulations are most in need. We study the service differentiation offered by a monopolistic ISP and find that the ISP’s profit-optimal strategy makes a free ordinary service damaged good, which hurts the welfare of CPs and their users. Instead of imposing net neutrality regulations, we propose a more flexible and lenient policy framework that generalizes net neutrality regulations. We believe that by allowing ISPs to differentiate services under a well-designed policy constraint, the utility of the entire Internet ecosystem could be greatly improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider strategic arrivals to a FCFS service system that starts service at a fixed time and has to serve a fixed number of customers, for example, an airplane boarding system. Arriving early induces a higher waiting cost (waiting before service begins) while arriving late induces a cost because earlier arrivals take the better seats. We first consider arrivals of heterogenous customers that choose arrival times to minimize the weighted sum of waiting cost and cost due to expected number of predecessors. We characterize the unique Nash equilibria for this system. Next, we consider a system offering L levels of priority service with a FCFS queue for each priority level. Higher priorities are charged higher admission prices. Customers make two choices—time of arrival and priority of service. We show that the Nash equilibrium corresponds to the customer types being divided into L intervals and customers belonging to each interval choosing the same priority level. We further analyze the net revenue to the server and consider revenue maximizing strategies—number of priority levels and pricing. Numerical results show that with only a small number of queues (two or three) the server can obtain nearly the maximum revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Mobile Patient Monitoring System (MPMS) acquires patient's biosignals and transmits them using wireless network connection to the decision-making module or healthcare professional for the assessment of patient's condition. A variety of wireless network technologies such as wireless personal area networks (e.g., Bluetooth), mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET), and infrastructure-based networks (e.g., WLAN and cellular networks) are in practice for biosignals delivery. The wireless network quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of biosignals delivery are mainly specified in terms of required bandwidth, acceptable delay, and tolerable error rate. An important research challenge in the MPMS is how to satisfy QoS requirements of biosignals delivery in the environment characterized by patient mobility, deployment of multiple wireless network technologies, and variable QoS characteristics of the wireless networks. QoS requirements are mainly application specific, while available QoS is largely dependent on QoS provided by wireless network in use. QoS provisioning refers to providing support for improving QoS experience of networked applications. In resource poor conditions, application adaptation may also be required to make maximum use of available wireless network QoS. This survey paper presents a survey of recent developments in the area of QoS provisioning for MPMS. In particular, our contributions are as follows: (1) overview of wireless networks and network QoS requirements of biosignals delivery; (2) survey of wireless networks' QoS performance evaluation for the transmission of biosignals; and (3) survey of QoS provisioning mechanisms for biosignals delivery in MPMS. We also propose integrating end-to-end QoS monitoring and QoS provisioning strategies in a mobile patient monitoring system infrastructure to support optimal delivery of biosignals to the healthcare professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently developed IEEE 802.11ad (WiGig) standard offers multi-Gbps connectivity for consumer wireless local area networks and operates in the millimeter wave frequency band (around 60 GHz). It supports two different contention-based channel access mechanisms, namely distributed coordination function, which offers fair service for every station, and the enhanced distributed channel Access (EDCA) for offering service differentiation among the stations. In this paper, we study the throughput performance of the IEEE 802.11ad EDCA mechanism under saturated traffic conditions using both analytical and simulation models. A novel five-dimensional Markov chain developed is used for analytically modeling the throughput behavior of the IEEE 802.11ad EDCA in the presence of virtual antenna sectors, high-gain directional beamforming, and presence of contention and contention-free access periods. Using this developed analytical model, the effect of the number of sectors, number of stations, arbitration inter-frame space, packet length, and minimum contention window size on the throughput of the four different access or service categories present in the EDCA under saturated traffic conditions, is investigated. When compared with the simulation outcomes, the proposed analytical model accurately analyzes the network performance by achieving less than 4% error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, we explore a limited feedback scheme for meeting the requirements that different users demand different communication rates. The main idea of this letter is to prioritize users by assigning different priority weights to the residual interference of each user. Then, by minimizing the weighted sum of residual interference, the optimal scheme for the allocation of feedback bits to support service differentiation is designed. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can support service differentiation regarding communication rates and the degree of difference in communication rate between users can be flexibly adjusted by changing the weights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in network applications diversity and different service quality requirements lead to service differentiation, making it more important than ever. In Wide Area Network (WAN), the non-responsive Long-Term Fast (LTF) flows are the main contributors to network congestion. Therefore, detecting and suppressing non-responsive LTF flows represent one of the key points for providing data transmission with controllable delay and service differentiation. However, the existing single-queue management algorithms are designed to serve only a small number of applications with similar requirements (low latency, high throughput, etc.). The lack of mechanisms to distinguish different traffic makes it difficult to implement differentiated services. This paper proposes an active queue management scheme, namely, SQM-LRU, which realizes service differentiation based on Shadow Queue (SQ) and improved Least-Recently-Used (LRU) strategy. The algorithm consists of three essential components: First, the flow detection module is based on the SQ and improved LRU. This module is used to detect non-responsive LTF flows. Second, different flows will be put into corresponding high or low priority sub-queues depending on the flow detection results. Third, the dual-queue adopts CoDel and RED, respectively, to manage packets. SQM-LRU intends to satisfy the stringent delay requirements of responsive flow while maximizing the throughput of non-responsive LTF flow. Our simulation results show that SQM-LRU outperforms traditional solutions with significant improvement in flow detection and reduces the delay, jitter, and Flow Completion Time (FCT) of responsive flow. As a result, it reduced the FCT by up to 50% and attained 95% of the link utilization. Additionally, the low overhead and the operations incur O(1) cost per packet, making it practical for the real network.

Due to the scarcity of the licensed spectrum allocated for mobile communication systems, licensed-assisted access long-term evolution (LAA-LTE) network is recently proposed to deploy in unlicensed spectrum, which is currently occupied by different Wi-Fi systems. It is a very challenging problem to ensure fair coexistence between LAA-LTE and Wi-Fi networks, in terms of spectrum sharing and traffic management. To solve this problem, a fair downlink traffic management (FDTM) scheme is proposed in this paper for hybrid LAA-LTE/Wi-Fi networks. FDTM aims to tune the minimum contention window (CWmin) values and assigns feasible weights for the LAA eNBs with different traffic loads, thus to achieve; 1) fair spectrum sharing with the coexisting Wi-Fi networks in unlicensed spectrum and 2) fair service differentiation for downlink LAA-LTE traffic. Numerical results show our FDTM scheme can guarantee the throughput performance of Wi-Fi networks in shared unlicensed spectrum while supporting proportional fairness for the LAA eNBs with different traffic loads.

In this paper a joint resource allocation problem is studied in a multi-service Single Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) wireless network. Mobile users request various services with different Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics and they determine in a distributed and non-cooperative manner a joint subcarrier and power allocation towards fulfilling their QoS prerequisites. Initially, a well-designed utility function is formulated to appropriately represent users’ diverse QoS prerequisites with respect to their requested service. The subcarriers allocation problem is solved based on a multilateral bargaining model, where users are able to select different discount factors to enter the bargaining game, thus better expressing their different needs in system resources with respect to their requested service. The subcarriers mapping is realized based either on the localized SC-FDMA method where the subcarriers are sequentially allocated to the users or the distributed SC-FDMA via considering the maximum channel gain policy, where each subcarrier is allocated to the user with the maximum channel gain. Given the subcarriers assignment, an optimization problem with respect to users’ uplink transmission power is formulated and solved, in order to determine the optimal power allocation per subcarrier assigned to each user. Finally, the performance of the proposed framework is evaluated via modeling and simulation and extensive numerical results are presented.