The research on call centres has attracted many researchers from different disciplines recently. In this thesis, we focus on call centre modelling, analysis and design. In terms of modelling, traditionally call centres have been modelled as single-node queueing systems. Based on the Semiopen Queueing Network (SOQN) model proposed by Srinivasan et al. [42], we propose and study SOQN models with balking and abandonment (both exponential and general patience time distributions). In addition, we study the corresponding single-node queueing systems and obtain new results. For each model, we study the queue length distribution, waiting time distribution and the related performance measures. To facilitate the computation, we express the performance measures in terms of special functions. In terms of call centre design, we develop a design algorithm to determine the minimal number of CSRs (S) and trunk lines (N) to satisfy a given set of service level constraints.<p> The explicit expressions for performance measures obtained allow for theoretical analysis of the performance measures. For example we prove monotonicity and convexity properties of performance measures for the M/M/S/N and M/M/S/N + M models. We also study the comparison of different patience time distributions for the M/M/S/N+G model.<p> We provide numerical examples for each model and discuss numerical results such as monotonicity properties of performance measures. In particular, we illustrate the efficacy of our design algorithm for various models including patient, balking and abandonment models. The impact of model parameters on the design of call centres is also discussed based on the numerical examples. The results are computed using Matlab, where special functions are available.

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Interactive multimedia sessions combine requirements of traditional telephony services and Internet applications. This requires call setup, call signaling, negotiation, routing, security, and network resources. Seeking to facilitate the use of quality of service (QoS) mechanisms to users of such applications, this thesis presented new signaling architectures that addressed the interaction of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as the session control signaling protocol and current resource management frameworks. The Differentiated Services (DiffServ) architecture is used as the primary example. The new architectures addressed the roles of SIP agents and proxy servers in subjects such as resource negotiation, call authorization, and end-to-end QoS in heterogeneous networks. First, an architecture based on the use of QoS-enhanced SIP proxies and a SIP-based interface between the application and network layers was developed, implemented in a testbed, and performance enhancements demonstrated. Further studying of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) proposal for the integration of SIP and resource management led to the development of a new signaling scheme, Resource management Overlapped with Answering Delay (ROAD). It explores the SIP user agent interaction with the network in a way that takes advantage of parallel user answering delays and reservation delays. An experimental evaluation of the ROAD scheme showed its call setup delay savings and reduced signaling load. Then, on the interaction of SIP and call admission control, an inter-domain call authorization model that implements the concepts of proxies as gate controllers (QoS-enhanced SIP proxies-GC), and that provides call authorization status and adds more granularity to the authorization process is proposed. This model showed to be scalable in terms of the need to add more resources to compensate for the increasing service load on the servers. Finally, an example framework that applies the new signaling architectures to achieve end-to-end QoS in heterogeneous networks is presented.

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Abstract This study analyzed the contexts of three types of agonistic calls (Growl, Threat rattle, Vibrato growl) in Formosan macaques and their responses to predators and alarm calls at Mt. Longevity. Under natural condition, 112 five-minute scan samplings and 100 twenty-minute behavior samplings were collected to record agonistic behaviors and agonistic calls of macaques. In addition, 11 dog-presence tests and 102 playback experiments were successfully conducted from January 2003 to April 2004. Of 385 agonistic events, 61.8% comprise of vocal bouts contained units belonging to single type of agonistic calls, and 31.8% bouts were mixed units contained more than one type of agonistic calls. Among these three single types of agonistic calls, Vibrato growl was used most frequently during conspecific interactions (44.3%); Threat rattle was used toward human (51.7%) and dogs (94.4%). During intraspecies conflicts of macaques, the vocal rates of three single type agonistic calls decreased from adult males, adult females and juveniles to infants. The average units per bout of Growl was higher than that of Threat rattle and Vibrato growl (p<0.0002). However, the agonistic interactions explain the different functions of the three types of agonistic calls. Growl was frequently accomplished with chase of callers (45.6%), while flee was usually expressed by receivers (57.9%). When monkeys uttered Threat rattle or Vibrato growl, open mouth threat was the most frequent behavior expressed by callers (80.5% and 73.1%), while evade was most frequent behavior expressed by receivers (43.9% and 31.9%). Growl conveyed messages about intense callers and contexts, and receivers avoided damage through fleeing. These results support Smith (1981) hypothesis referential signal carry information about external objects, contexts or a caller internal state as reflected in the probability of its subsequent behavior pattern. Receivers are able to attribute a certain meaning and express appropriate responses by the combination of signal structure and the context in which they are exposed the call. Six different acoustic features of alarm calls existed between adult males and juvenile males. Alarm calls from Juveniles have higher Maximal, Median and Modulation Fundamental Frequencies than from adult males (p<0.0001). But alarm calls from juveniles have lower Highest Frequency, Total Range of Frequency and Duration of each Unit than from adult males (p<0.005). The results support current theory that the duration and fundamental frequency reflect body size. In the playback experiments, macaques responded stronger to alarm calls from adult males than from juvenile males (p<0.0001). The average response score of macaques toward alarm calls from playback experiments was highest from infants, followed by juveniles, adult females and adult males. Adult macaques often responded to playbacks by looking in the direction of the loudspeaker. Juveniles and infants most often responded to playback calls by escape and startle. In playback experiments of alarm calls from adult males, F troop had significant different responses in three different places, strongest in the unfamiliar place (p<0.0001). The presents of dog elicited macaques with stronger responses than playback of dog barks (p<0.0001).

In order to pursue the better service quality and the more long term customer relations, more and more many enterprises considered establishes the guest to take the center to respond the customer as necessary the demand; But because voluntarily establishes the guest to take central the cost too to be huge, as well as the specialized technology obtains with difficulty, the most enterprises choice and outside the specialized committee the company cooperated after the careful appraisal, cause the guest to take outside the committee the demand in recent years the large increase. Because the modern enterprise's competition is intense, how will sell, stratification plane union and so on the marketing, customer service will be one, will be the modern enterprise strives for the time the important topic, therefore the guest will take outside the committee the tenderer whether will be able to respond the enterprise customer immediately the demand, and if will establish long-time and the stable partnership, then will become the guest to take the key aspect which whether outside the committee will succeed. In addition, the guest takes outside the committee the tenderer to have to assist the customer to solve the multiplex talented person demand problem in the shortest time, therefore elastic human resources management, is the guest takes the biggest challenge which outside the committee the industry faces. This research utilizes half structural formula interview, carries on depth interview to the document company participant, and interview of manuscript, the electronic files and the written material the penetration document company, auxiliary by the home, outside are connected the literature, analyzes the guest to take outside the committee the tenderer and the customer establishment partnership various stages interaction key, and its the human resources management design and the operation, finally infers goes visiting outside the clothing committee the industry if the customer establishment partnership model. This research discovery, the enterprise chooses the guest takes outside the central committee the main reason to develop for the dedicated occupation, suddenly to reveal the cost benefit and obtains the specialized knowledge. The enterprise chooses when the guest takes outside the committee the supplier, pays great attention to the specialized ability does not have the question, the cooperation experience for the communication in is rich, the systematic surface specialized and the specialized organization approval. Outside the committee both sides establish the partnership the process to be possible to divide are three stages: Service development, special case management and transport business management. But human resources management penetrates recruits the assign, the training development, the salary system and the achievements appraisal and so on the daily operation, has the quite tremendous influence to the special case management and transport business management stage partnership.

In this thesis, we proposed a call admission control algorithm (CAC) and an adaptive allocation of resource algorithm (AAR) for 3G wireless multimedia data transmission. The proposed CAC algorithm uses a measurement-based method by measuring real-time network load to modulate the parameters of the CAC algorithm and to decide whether to accept a call or not. When a call is admitted, the proposed AAR algorithm uses a low complexity algorithm to adaptively allocate bandwidth for the call to improve resource utilization. Taking advantages of the proposed CAC and AAR algorithms, the desired quality of service (QoS) can be maintained, the call forced termination probabilities can be reduced, and the call completion probabilities can be increased. In addition, there are a variety of types of data in 3G wireless communication networks. To set a proper priority for different data to maintain a desired QoS is important. Therefore, we also proposed a scheme to set priority for each call. On the basis of this scheme, simulation results show that the proposed CAC algorithm and the AAR algorithm can forward the call with higher priority to get relative higher QoS, and guarantee that an emergency call can go through and complete at any time in a normal situation.

Abstract This study analyzed the alarm calls of Formosan macaques and their functions from Mt. Longevity. Under the natural condition, 137 five-minute scan sampling and 129 completely 20-minute all occurrence sampling were collected to record behaviors and the alarm calls. In addition, 43 stimulus (predator) tests and 87 playback experiments were successfully conducted from September 2002 to March 2003. Incidents that triggered alarm calls included: the confrontation with dogs, threats from travelers with a cane, slingshots, or stones, encounters with other troops of macaques, passing-by motors or mobile cars, airplanes flying above, and some unrecognizable factors. Under the natural condition, most of the alarm calls produced by Formosan macaques were responds toward dogs (63.46%), with the average frequency of 0.78 times/10hrs. In the predator tests, types of stimulus (dog, human with slingshot, m-snake1 and m-snake2), sex/age classes (adult male, adult female, juvenile, and infant), and the position of macaques (0m, <1m, 1m, and ¡Ù2m) had great influence on the behavioral response of macaques (p<0.01). The response scores were from 3 to 0 (move away more than 5 times body length or climbed to tree, move away up to 5 times body length, visual orientation towards the predator and no apparent response). The average response score of macaques to dogs was the highest one, far above threats from a person with a slingshot, m-snake1 and m-snake 2 (p<0.05). When Formosan macaques confront dogs, the vocal frequency (time/individual) to the alarm call had great influence on sex/age classes of macaques (p<0.01), and the average alarm call frequency was highest from adult males. When human with slingshots and m-snake were predators, majority of the adult males and females adopted run-away (69.91¢M), while very few climbed up trees (8.02¢M) to prevent from any harm caused by predators. However, they ran away (31.52%) or climbed up trees (48.47%) in response to dogs in different proportions. The average response score of macaques, from high to low, was from infant, juvenile, adult female and adult male, and the differences were significant (p<0.05). When Formosan macaques encounter these four types of predators, their alarm calls were quite similar in the spectrographs. The six basic vocal characteristics (maximal, median and minimal fundamental frequency, lowest and peak frequency and duration), analyzed by canonical discriminate analysis, indicated that alarm calls of Formosan macaques confront dogs and human with slingshots could be distinguished from snake models. The four types of predators had significant effects at the median and maximal fundamental frequency of the basic vocal characteristics from adult females and juveniles (p<0.01). But there was no difference in the nine basic vocal characteristics of alarm calls from adult males and infants toward four types of predators. The alarm calls of adult females and juveniles toward dogs in the median and maximal fundamental frequency both were significantly lower than those from m-snake1. In the playback experiments, sex/age classes, types of the alarm calls toward stimulus (dogs, travelers with slingshots, m-snake1 and m-snake 2) and the position of macaques had significant effects on their behavioral responses (p<0.01). The average response score of macaques in playbacks, from high to low, was from infant, juvenile, adult female, and the adult male, and the differences were significant (p<0.05). When the alarm call caused by dogs played back, the average response score of macaques was higher than the alarm calls stimulated by m-snake1 and m-snake 2 (P<0.05). In the playback experiments, when macaques at a higher place (¡Ù2m), they often visually orientated towards the predator or no apparent response whit a lowest response score. The average response scores of the adult males and females toward four types of alarm calls (playback) were higher than the control ones (p<0.05).

M. Tech. Contact Center Management / The University of South Africa's (UNISA) main mode of interacting with students up to July 2011 was through the UNISA Contact Centre (UCC). The UCC supported the academic progress of students by answering questions ranging from admissions to graduation. A student satisfaction survey conducted in 2009 by UNISA's Bureau of Market Research among students revealed that the UCC was rated the most unsatisfactory service. On 29 July 2011, UNISA closed the UCC. The university therefore introduced new modes of interacting with students, including, among others, sms responses, email responses, telephone, MyUnisa and social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The aim of this study was to explore students' perceptions of interaction with the UCC. The major findings show that the majority of the respondents did not agree with the decision to close the UCC and that the majority of the respondents had positive experiences and ratings of the UCC indicating only a few areas for improvement.

Call centres have in the last three decades come to define the interaction between corporations, governments, and other institutions and their respective customers, citizens, and members. From telemarketing to tele-health services, to credit card assistance, and even emergency response systems, call centres function as a nexus mediating technologically enabled labour practices with the commodification of services. Because of the ubiquitous nature of the call centre in post-industrial capitalism, the banality of these interactions often overshadows the nature of work and labour in this now-global sector. Advances in telecommunication technologies and the globalization of management practices designed to oversee and maintain standardized labour processes have made call centre work an international phenomenon. Simultaneously, these developments have dislocated assumptions about the geographic and spatial seat of work in what is defined here as the new international division of knowledge labour. The offshoring and outsourcing of call centre employment, part of the larger information technology and information technology enabled services sectors, has become a growing practice amongst governments and corporations in their attempts at controlling costs. Leading offshore destinations for call centre work, such as Canada and India, emerged as prominent locations for call centre work for these reasons. While incredible advances in technology have permitted the use of distant and “offshore” labour forces, the grander reshaping of an international political economy of communications has allowed for the acceleration of these processes. New and established labour unions have responded to these changes in the global regimes of work by seeking to organize call centre workers. These efforts have been assisted by a range of forces, not least of which is the condition of work itself, but also attempts by global union federations to build a bridge between international unionism and local organizing campaigns in the Global South and Global North. Through an examination of trade union interventions in the call centre industries located in Canada and India, this dissertation contributes to research on post-industrial employment by using political economy as a juncture between development studies, critical communications, and labour studies. / Thesis (Ph.D, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2011-08-18 11:21:44.794