The routing strategy used in today's Internet is best-effort service, where all data packets are treated equally. This type of service is not suited for applications such as video conferencing, and video on demand, that requires the availability of certain resources (such as bandwidth) to be guaranteed for them to function properly. The routing in this context, called Quality-of-Service (QoS) Routing, is the problem of finding suitable paths that meet the application's resource requirements. The majority of proposed QoS routing schemes operate by maintaining the global state of the network, and using this knowledge to compute the QoS route. However, all these schemes suffer from the inherent drawback of scalability, because of the need for each node to collect state information about the complete network. The other type of QoS routing schemes do not maintain network state information, but instead flood the network with QoS connection establishment requests. This type of scheme suffers from excessive message overhead during QoS connection establishment. In this thesis, we present a new QoS routing algorithm that is a combination of the above-mentioned two schemes (i.e., global state and flooding based). The algorithm aims at minimizing the message overhead associated with these two schemes and still maintaining the positive aspects of both of them. The basic idea of the algorithm is: to reach to a destination, the path(s) will always pass through a specific set of intermediate nodes. The algorithm discovers such intermediate nodes (limited by a hop count threshold value needed to reach there). When a QoS connection request arrives at a node, it selects the feasible path leading to the intermediate node for the requested destination. The QoS connection establishment message (or routing message) is forwarded along this path. When the message arrives at the intermediate node, the further path is decided through same logic. To decide the path that leads to the intermediate node, the algorithm maintains the link state related to these intermediate nodes, and link state updates are restricted only with regard to these intermediate nodes. Because of this restriction in link state updation, one has less message overhead, compared to the global state based routing scheme. Further, the algorithm tries to group these intermediate nodes in such a way that the routing message need be sent to only one of the grouped intermediate nodes, and still makes sure that all the possible paths are covered. Therefore, one has a reduced message overhead because of grouping.

In the next generation of networks we will begin to see the true convergence of voice, multimedia, and data traffic. This merging of various dedicated networks will occur both in the wired and wireless domains. Given the growth in the areas of wireless voice and data, we see that the combination of mobile and Internet communication constitutes the driving force behind the third-generation wireless system and makes the basis for the fourth-generation wireless system. For services like voice over IP over wireless (VoIPoW), the main challenge is to achieve QoS and spectrum efficiency. In order to support better QoS the IETF Mobile IP Working Group is discussing a number of enhancements to the base protocol to reduce the latency, packet loss and signaling overhead experienced during handoff. This support also includes both the call admission and the subsequent scheduling of packet transmissions. In this thesis, we will first survey the work done on issues related to QoS provisioning for wireless network and then will address bandwidth allocation problem in packet radio network with special emphasis on wireline to wireless internetworking zone. The main aim of the thesis is to evolve a strategy to reduce the call dropping probability by negotiating the QoS in those conditions when we do not have the sufficient resources (mainly bandwidth) to allocate. In order to achieve the QoS we have investigated the behaviour of the Real-time Voice traffic on a wireless link and its relation to the associated quality of service. This investigation opens a way for QoS negotiation, in a condition like during handoff, when the network is not able to sustain the negotiated bandwidth. The main results of this work are, that even with reduced bandwidth, quality for speech can be maintained at a reasonable level and this way the call dropping can be reduced. Such a scheme is useful in those conditions when we do not have the sufficient bandwidth to allocate like during a handoff of a mobile host from one cell to another. Moreover the bandwidth is a scarce resource in wireless domain so there should be an efficient call admission control policy. Many call admission control policies are proposed in the literature; here we propose a simple scheme for real-time traffic, specially speech, in a base station which increases the system throughput. In addition to above, we have also experimented with Cellular IP, one of the implementations of proposed micro-mobility architecture to provide faster handoff and seamless mobility in wired and wireless network.

The aim of this work is to understand the requirements behind Quality of Service (QoS) for Multihop Wireless Networks and evaluate the performance of different such strategies. This work starts by establishing the basis for requirement of QoS and evaluates different approaches for providing QoS. Bandwidth is selected as the most important resource amongst the resources identified for ensuring QoS. The problem is modeled as an optimization problem that tries to maximize the amount of bandwidth available in the system while providing bounds over the bandwidth available over a route. Other QoS parameters are bound by hard limits and are not involved in the optimization problem. The existence of spatial reuse rules has been established through simulations for a TCP based network. This establishes that the reuse rules are independent of the MAC and network layer protocols used. This idea is used in designing the simulations for strategies that use controlled spatial reuse and give known bounds for QoS. Simulations take the network and a set of connections to generate the best possible schedule that guarantees bandwidth to individual connections and maximizes the total number of slots used in the entire system. The total number of slots used is a measure of the bandwidth in use. The set of graphs and connections is generated by a random graph and connection generator and the data set is large enough to average the results. There are two different approaches used for scheduling the connections. The first approach uses graph coloring and provides a simpler implementation in terms of network deployments. Second approach uses on-demand slot allocation. The approaches are compared for their pros and cons. The first approach uses graph coloring to allocate fixed number of slots to each link. This makes an equivalent of a wired network with fixed bandwidth over each link. This network is simpler to operate and analyze at the cost of one time expense of graph coloring. The assumption here is that the network is static or has low mobility. The on demand approach is more flexible in terms of slot assignment and is adaptable to the changing traffic patterns. The cons are that connection establishment is more expensive in terms of bandwidth required and is more complicated and difficult to analyze. The advantages include low initial network establishment cost and accommodation of mobility.

Moore's Law has helped Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) scale continuously in speed, capacity and energy efficiency, allowing the integration of ever-larger systems into a single FPGA chip. This brings challenges to the productivity of developers in leveraging the sea of FPGA resources. Higher level of design abstractions and programming models are needed to improve the design productivity, which in turn require memory architectural supports on FPGAs. While previous efforts focus on computation-centric applications, we take a bandwidth-centric approach in designing memory systems. In particular, we investigate the scheduling, buffered switching and searching problems, which are common to a wide range of FPGA applications. Despite that the bandwidth problem has been extensively studied for general-purpose computing and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs, the proposed techniques are often not applicable to FPGAs. In order to achieve optimized design implementations, designers need to take into consideration both the underlying FPGA physical characteristics as well as the requirements from applications. We therefore extract design requirements from four driving applications for the selected problems, and address them by exploiting the physical architectures and available resources of FPGAs. Towards solving the selected problems, we manage to advance state-of-the-art with a scheduling algorithm, a switch organization and a cache analytical model. These lead to performance improvements, resource savings and feasibilities of new approaches for well-known problems.

Moore's Law has helped Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) scale continuously in speed, capacity and energy efficiency, allowing the integration of ever-larger systems into a single FPGA chip. This brings challenges to the productivity of developers in leveraging the sea of FPGA resources. Higher level of design abstractions and programming models are needed to improve the design productivity, which in turn require memory architectural supports on FPGAs. While previous efforts focus on computation-centric applications, we take a bandwidth-centric approach in designing memory systems. In particular, we investigate the scheduling, buffered switching and searching problems, which are common to a wide range of FPGA applications. Despite that the bandwidth problem has been extensively studied for general-purpose computing and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs, the proposed techniques are often not applicable to FPGAs. In order to achieve optimized design implementations, designers need to take into consideration both the underlying FPGA physical characteristics as well as the requirements from applications. We therefore extract design requirements from four driving applications for the selected problems, and address them by exploiting the physical architectures and available resources of FPGAs. Towards solving the selected problems, we manage to advance state-of-the-art with a scheduling algorithm, a switch organization and a cache analytical model. These lead to performance improvements, resource savings and feasibilities of new approaches for well-known problems.

The objective of this thesis is to improve the performance of real-time communication overa wireless channel, by means of specifically tailored channel coding. The deadlinedependent coding (DDC) communication protocol presented here lets the timeliness and thereliability of the delivered information constitute quality of service (QoS) parametersrequested by the application. The values of these QoS parameters are transformed intoactions taken by the link layer protocol in terms of adaptive coding strategies.Incremental redundancy hybrid automatic repeat request (IR-HARQ) schemes usingrate compatible punctured codes are appealing since no repetition of previously transmittedbits is made. Typically, IR-HARQ schemes treat the packet lengths as fixed and maximizethe throughput by optimizing the puncturing pattern, i.e. the order in which the coded bitsare transmitted. In contrast, we define an IR strategy as the maximum number of allowedtransmissions and the number of code bits to include in each transmission. An approach isthen suggested to find the optimal IR strategy that maximizes the average code rate, i.e., theoptimal partitioning of n-kparity bits over at most M transmissions, assuming a givenpuncturing pattern. Concatenated coding used in IR-HARQ schemes provides a new arrayof possibilities for adaptability in terms of decoding complexity and communication timeversus reliability. Hence, critical reliability and timing constraints can be readily evaluatedas a function of available system resources. This in turn enables quantifiable QoS and thusnegotiable QoS. Multiple concatenated single parity check codes are chosen as examplecodes due to their very low decoding complexity. Specific puncturing patterns for thesecomponent codes are obtained using union bounds based on uniform interleavers. Thepuncturing pattern that has the best performance in terms of frame error rate (FER) at a lowsignal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is chosen. Further, using extrinsic information transfer (EXIT)analysis, rate compatible puncturing ratios for the constituent component code are found.The puncturing ratios are chosen to minimize the SNR required for convergence.The applications targeted in this thesis are not necessarily replacement of cables inexisting wired systems. Instead the motivation lies in the new services that wireless real-time communication enables. Hence, communication within and between cooperatingembedded systems is typically the focus. The resulting IR-HARQ-DDC protocol presentedhere is an efficient and fault tolerant link layer protocol foundation using adaptiveconcatenated coding intended specifically for wireless real-time communications. / Doktorsavhandlingar vid Chalmers tekniska högskola. Ny serie, 2198, Technical report. D, 29,

Magistro darbe yra iškelta Šiaulių miesto pramogų klubų rinkos teikiamų paslaugų kokybės problema. Darbe išanalizuota ir susisteminta įvairių tiek Lietuvos, tiek ir užsienio autorių publikuota medžiaga bei atlikti tyrimai, susiję su paslaugų marketingu bei kokybe, vartotojų elgsena. Darbe išsamiai išanalizuota paslaugų koncepcijos esmė bei paslaugų marketingo komplekso išskirtinumas. Darbe plačiai analizuojama paslaugų kokybė teoriniu aspektu, atlikta paslaugų kokybės modelių analizė, analizuotas paslaugų kokybės valdymas bei apibrėžiama aptarnavimo svarba paslaugų sferoje. Tyrimo metu išsiaiškinta, kad suformuluota mokslinio tyrimo hipotezė nepasitvirtina, kadangi dauguma apklaustų pramogų klubų klientų yra patenkinti Šiaulių miesto pramogų klubų teikiamų paslaugų kokybe ir ji tenkina klientų poreikius. / This master‘s work analyzes the quality of the service in the recreational clubs of Siauliai. The material of the foreign authors and Lithuanian ones has been analyzed and structured. Also, the research, involving service marketing, quality and customer behaviour is made. The essence of the service conception and the oneness of the complex of the service marketing is particularly analyzed. Moreover, the paper theoretically analyzes the quality of the service, and there is the analysis of the service quality modals made. The management of the service quality is also analyzed. The importance of the service is determined. It is revealed that the hypothesis of the research is not confirmed, because most of the questioned customers are satisfied with the quality of the service in the recreational clubs in Siauliai.

The primary aim of this thesis was to undertake research in a Higher Education and Training Institution in a Provincial Government Department in the Western Cape to determine which variables affect the services that are being delivered and the quality of the services and how these services could be improved. The population selected for the purpose of the research was a large number of students at a Higher Education and Training Institution in a Provincial Government Department in the Western Cape. A research sample represented by a subset of participants from this organisation was selected. A biographical questionnaire and the SERVQUAL questionnaire were administered to a sample of 130 students enrolled at a Higher Education Institution in the Western Cape. The results indicate that there are significant relationships between selected biographical variables and perceptions of service quality. Moreover, there were also statistically significant differences in perceptions on the variables Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Tangibles and Empathy. Tentative conclusions can be drawn from the results and recommendations regarding future research are highlighted.

Providing end-to-end quality-assured services implies many challenges, which go beyond technical ones, involving as well economic and even cultural or political issues. In this thesis we first focus on a technical problem and then intent a more holistic regard to the whole problem, considering at the same time Network Service Providers (NSPs), stakeholders and buyers' behaviour and satisfaction. One of the most important problems when deploying interdomain path selection with Quality of Service (QoS) requirements is being able to rely the computations on metrics that hold for a long period of time. Our proposal for solving that problem is to compute bounds on the metrics, taking into account the uncertainty on the traffic demands. We then move to a NSP-alliance scenario, where we propose a complete framework for selling interdomain quality-assured services, and subsequently distributing revenues. At the end of the thesis we adopt a more holistic approach and consider the interactions with the monitoring plane and the buyers' behaviour. We propose a simple pricing scheme and study it in detail, in order to use QoS monitoring information as feedback to the business plane, with the ultimate objective of improving the seller's revenue.

在未來異質網路的整合環境中，QoS的問題益形重要，而以現今的網路環境而言，最有可能的異質網路整合是UMTS與WLAN。在本計畫中，我們將以UMTS與WLAN的異質網路整合環境作為基礎，提出Pricing-Improved QoS的觀念，結合Non usage-based pricing、Usage-based pricing、Static pricing和Dynamic pricing的優點以及DiffServ (Differentiated Services)劃分服務等級(service level)的機制，實際設計出使用者效用函數(utility function)與網路成本函數(cost function)，並以分級訂價方式訂定價格。藉著價格機能，讓使用者表達其對服務等級的需求或期望，並使網路資源適當地分配給各種服務，避免資源浪費或錯置的情形，以符合QoS的需求並提高整體社會福利及增加廠商收益。 / The issue of QoS is getting more and more important in the future integration of heterogeneous networks, and the most feasible integration is UMTS and WLAN as for present network environment. In our research, we would propose the concept of pricing-improved QoS combined with the advantage of usage-based, non usage-based, static, and dynamic pricing schemes and the mechanism of differentiated service classess of DiffServ (Differentiated Services) based on the integration of UMTS and WLAN. We would propose the utility function and cost function in detail, and price by differentiated service classes. By the affection of price, a user could express the service class he actually needs and expects. Network resources would be allocated appropriately to each service class avoiding the inappropriate allocation and wastage. This would meet the requirement of QoS and improve the providers’ revenue and overall social welfare.