Consumers in the UK are spending about three days of waiting in queues every year. The majority of the French consumers would choose another business if it offered faster service. Research on current waiting times are therefore focusing on finding solutions to reduce consumers wait by reducing perceived waiting time and the dissatisfaction that arises with queues. The purpose of this study is to find out how to make the queues at the theme parks more fun with interactive digital technologies and the impact these have on the guest experience. A survey is carried out to find out how mobile usage looks at amusement parks today and how the respondents place themselves against the integration of interactive digital technologies in amusement parks. Even an interview, with the leader of the world's first synchronized queue entertainment the Helix game, is implemented. Theories show that one can reduce the perceived waiting time by introducing new environmental stimuli and fill the time with various activities that visitors can be consumed by. Thus increases the guest experience and the queues are less boring and time-consuming. One way of doing this is to incorporate mobile digital interactive techniques, which respondents would like to see more of. / Konsumenter i Storbritannien spenderar ungefär tre dagar på att vänta i köer per år. Majoriteten av de franska konsumenterna skulle välja en annan affär om den erbjöd en snabbare service. Forskning gällande väntetider fokuserar därför på att hitta lösningar för att minska konsumenternas väntan genom att reducera uppfattad väntetid och på så sätt minska missnöjet som uppstår med köer. Studiens syfte är att ta reda på hur man kan göra köerna på nöjesfält roligare med hjälp av interaktiva digitala tekniker och vilka effekter dessa har på gästupplevelsen. En enkät har genomförts för att ta reda på hur mobilanvändandet ser ut på nöjesfält idag samt hur respondenter ställer sig mot integreringen av interaktiva digitala tekniker på nöjesfält.  Även en intervju med projektledaren för världens första synkroniserade kö-underhållning, Helix-spelet, genomförs. Teorier visar på att man kan minska de uppfattade väntetiderna genom att introducera nya miljöstimulanser samt fylla tiden med olika aktiviteter som besökarna kan uppslukas av. Då ökar man gästupplevelsen samt gör köerna roligare. Ett sätt att göra detta på är att integrera mobila digitala interaktiva tekniker vilket respondenterna vill se mer av.

Production parallel systems are space-shared and employ batch queues in which the jobs submitted to the systems are made to wait before execution. Thus, jobs submitted to parallel batch systems incur queue waiting times in addition to the execution times. Prediction of these queue waiting times is important to provide overall estimates to the users and can also help meta-schedulers make scheduling decisions. In the first part of our research, we have developed an integrated framework PQStar for identification and prediction of jobs with short queue waiting times. Analyses of the job traces of supercomputers reveal that about 56 to 99% of the jobs incur queue waiting times of less than an hour. Hence, identifying these quick starters or jobs with short queue waiting times is Essential for overall improvement on queue waiting time predictions. An important aspect of our prediction strategy for quick starters is that it considers the processor occupancy state and the queue state at the time of the job submission in addition to the job characteristics including the requested number of processors and the estimated runtime. Our experiments with different Production supercomputer job traces show that our prediction strategies can lead to correct identification of about 20% more quick starters on an average and provide tighter bounds for these jobs, and result in about 24% higher overall prediction accuracy on an average than the next best existing method. We have also developed a framework for predicting ranges of queue waiting times for other classes of jobs by employing multi-class classification on similar jobs in history. Our hierarchical prediction strategy first predicts the point wait time of a job using dynamic k- Nearest Neighbor (kNN) method. It then performs a multi-class classification using Support Vector Machines (SVMs) among all the classes of the jobs. The probabilities given by the SVM for the predicted class (obtained from the kNN), along with its neighboring classes, are used to provide a set of ranges of wait times with probabilities. Our experiments with different production supercomputer job traces show that our prediction strategies can lead to about 8% improved accuracy on an average in prediction of the non-quick starters, compared to the next best existing method. Finally, we have used these predictions and probabilities in a meta-scheduling strategy that distributes jobs to different queues/sites in a multi-queue/grid environment for minimizing wait times of the jobs. For a given target job, we first identify the queues/sites where the job can be a quick starter to get a set of candidate queues/sites for the scheduling of the job. We then compute the expected value of the predicted wait time in each of the candidate queues/sites, and schedule the job to the one with minimum expected value, for the execution of the job. We have performed experiments with different production supercomputer job traces and synthetic traces for various system sizes, partitioning schemes and different workloads. These experiments have shown that our scheduling strategy gives much improved performance when compared to the existing scheduling policies by reducing the overall average queue waiting times of the jobs by about 47% on an average.

The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of how social secretaries in childwelfare service (CWS, in swedish BoF) work with children with symptoms ofneurodevelopmental disorder (NDD, in swedish NPF) and how they experience that the longcare queues at Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services (CAP, in swedish BUP) affect theirwork. The empirics were collected through six semi-structured interviews with socialsecretaries from CWS in six different municipalities in a county in Sweden. The empirics wereanalyzed through a qualitative content analysis, and the professional logic has been used as atheoretical framework in the analysis of the results. In summary, the study showed that thesocial secretaries felt that they often came into contact with children with NDD problems. It isfurther explained that, based on their area of responsibility, they handled different problems inthe child's social situation. The results also showed that social secretaries experienced that theyhad many different opportunities to handle these children's social situation. However, the socialsecretaries wanted more alternatives of interventions directly to the child and that they couldwork more preventively and less in an emergency situation. The social secretaries' workclimate, workload and cooperation between the two organizations are some examples of areasthat the results showed were negatively affected by the care queues for CAP. One conclusionwas that social workers did not experience working differently with children with suspected ordiagnosed NPF, in comparison with other children. Their work was instead guided by the child'sneeds. Another conclusion is that the social secretaries had different experiences about how thecare queues affected their work. The results of the study provided valuable experiences fromthe social secretary and invited further studies of the staff on CAP's experiences, in order tothen solve the problem areas that are also highlighted in the study. / Syftet med denna studie var att utveckla förståelsen för hur socialsekreterare på Barn-ochfamiljeenheten (BoF) arbetar med barn med misstänkt eller diagnostiserad neuropsykiatriskfunktionsnedsättning (NPF) samt hur de upplever att de långa vårdköerna till Barn- ochungdomspsykiatrin (BUP) påverkar deras arbete. Empirin insamlades genom sexsemistrukturerade intervjuer med socialsekreterare på BoF i sex olika kommuner i ett län iSverige. Empirin analyserades genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys, och den professionellalogiken användes som teoretisk utgångspunkt vid analys av resultatet. Sammanfattningsvisvisade studiens resultat att socialsekreterarna upplevde att de ofta kom i kontakt med barn medNPF-problematik. Vidare förklarades att de utifrån sitt ansvarsområde hanterade olika problemi barnets sociala situation. Resultatet visade även att socialsekreterare upplevde sig ha mångaolika möjligheter att hantera dessa barns sociala situation. Socialsekreterarna önskade dock fleralternativ av insatser direkt till barnet och att de kunde arbeta mer förebyggande och mindre iett akut läge. Socialsekreterarnas arbetsklimat, arbetsbelastning och samarbetet mellan de tvåorganisationerna var några exempel på områden som resultatet visade påverkas negativt avvårdköerna till BUP. En slutsats var att socialsekreterare inte upplevde sig arbeta annorlundamed barn med misstänkt eller diagnostiserad NPF, i jämförelse med andra barn. Deras arbetestyrdes istället utifrån barnets behov. Ytterligare en slutsats är att socialsekreterarna hade olikaupplevelser om hur vårdköerna påverkade deras arbete. Studiens resultat gav värdefullaupplevelser från socialsekreterare och inviterade till vidare studier av personalen på BUP:supplevelser, för att sedan lösa de problemområden som också har lyfts i studien

Integration flows are increasingly used to specify and execute data-intensive integration tasks between heterogeneous systems and applications. There are many different application areas such as near real-time ETL and data synchronization between operational systems. For the reasons of an increasing amount of data, highly distributed IT infrastructures, as well as high requirements for up-to-dateness of analytical query results and data consistency, many instances of integration flows are executed over time. Due to this high load, the performance of the central integration platform is crucial for an IT infrastructure. With the aim of throughput maximization, we propose the concept of multi-flow optimization (MFO). In this approach, messages are collected during a waiting time and executed in batches to optimize sequences of plan instances of a single integration flow. We introduce a horizontal (value-based) partitioning approach for message batch creation and show how to compute the optimal waiting time. This approach significantly reduces the total execution time of a message sequence and hence, it maximizes the throughput, while accepting moderate latency time.

Since the field of computer networks has rapidly grown in the last two decades, congestion control of traffic loads within networks has become a high priority. Congestion occurs in network routers when the number of incoming packets exceeds the available network resources, such as buffer space and bandwidth allocation. This may result in a poor network performance with reference to average packet queueing delay, packet loss rate and throughput. To enhance the performance when the network becomes congested, several different active queue management (AQM) methods have been proposed and some of these are discussed in this thesis. Specifically, these AQM methods are surveyed in detail and their strengths and limitations are highlighted. A comparison is conducted between five known AQM methods, Random Early Detection (RED), Gentle Random Early Detection (GRED), Adaptive Random Early Detection (ARED), Dynamic Random Early Drop (DRED) and BLUE, based on several performance measures, including mean queue length, throughput, average queueing delay, overflow packet loss probability, packet dropping probability and the total of overflow loss and dropping probabilities for packets, with the aim of identifying which AQM method gives the most satisfactory results of the performance measures. This thesis presents a new AQM approach based on the RED algorithm that determines and controls the congested router buffers in an early stage. This approach is called Dynamic RED (REDD), which stabilises the average queue length between minimum and maximum threshold positions at a certain level called the target level to prevent building up the queues in the router buffers. A comparison is made between the proposed REDD, RED and ARED approaches regarding the above performance measures. Moreover, three methods based on RED and fuzzy logic are proposed to control the congested router buffers incipiently. These methods are named REDD1, REDD2, and REDD3 and their performances are also compared with RED using the above performance measures to identify which method achieves the most satisfactory results. Furthermore, a set of discrete-time queue analytical models are developed based on the following approaches: RED, GRED, DRED and BLUE, to detect the congestion at router buffers in an early stage. The proposed analytical models use the instantaneous queue length as a congestion measure to capture short term changes in the input and prevent packet loss due to overflow. The proposed analytical models are experimentally compared with their corresponding AQM simulations with reference to the above performance measures to identify which approach gives the most satisfactory results. The simulations for RED, GRED, ARED, DRED, BLUE, REDD, REDD1, REDD2 and REDD3 are run ten times, each time with a change of seed and the results of each run are used to obtain mean values, variance, standard deviation and 95% confidence intervals. The performance measures are calculated based on data collected only after the system has reached a steady state. After extensive experimentation, the results show that the proposed REDD, REDD1, REDD2 and REDD3 algorithms and some of the proposed analytical models such as DRED-Alpha, RED and GRED models offer somewhat better results of mean queue length and average queueing delay than these achieved by RED and its variants when the values of packet arrival probability are greater than the value of packet departure probability, i.e. in a congestion situation. This suggests that when traffic is largely of a non bursty nature, instantaneous queue length might be a better congestion measure to use rather than the average queue length as in the more traditional models.

no / Multimedia applications in wireless networks are usually categorized into various classes according to their traffic patterns and differentiated Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements. The traffic of heterogeneous multimedia applications often exhibits the Long-Range Dependent (LRD) and Short-Range Dependent (SRD) properties, respectively. The integrated scheduling scheme that combines Priority Queuing (PQ) and Generalized Processor Sharing (GPS) within a hierarchical structure, referred to as PQ-GPS, has been identified as an efficient mechanism for QoS differentiation in wireless networks and attracted significant research efforts. However, due to the high complexity and interdependent relationship among traffic flows, modelling of the integrated scheduling scheme poses great challenges. To address this challenging and important research problem, we develop an original analytical model for PQ-GPS systems under heterogeneous LRD and SRD traffic. A cost-effective flow decomposition approach is proposed to equivalently divide the integrated scheduling system into a group of Single-Server Single-Queue (SSSQ) systems. The expressions for calculating the queue length distribution and loss probability of individual traffic flows are further derived. After validating its accuracy, the developed model is adopted as an efficient performance tool to investigate the important issues of resource allocation and call admission control in the integrated scheduling system under QoS constraints.

In this thesis, we study the tradeoff of average delay with average service cost and average utility for both continuous time and discrete time single server queueing models without and with admission control. The continuous time and discrete time queueing models that we consider are motivated by cross-layer models for point-to-point links with random packet arrivals and fading at slow and fast time scales. Our studies are motivated by the need to optimally tradeoff the average delay of the packets (a network layer performance measure) with the average service cost of transmitting the packets, e.g. the average power required for transmission (a physical layer performance measure) under a lower bound constraint on the average throughput, in various point-to-point communication scenarios. The tradeoff problems are studied for a class of monotone and stationary scheduling policies and under the assumption that the service cost rate and utility rate are respectively convex and concave functions of the service rate and arrival rate. We also consider the problem of optimally trading off the average delay and average error rate of randomly arriving message symbols which are transmitted over a noisy point-to-point link, in which case the service cost function is non-convex. The solutions to the tradeoff problems that we address in the thesis are asymptotic in nature, and are similar in spirit to the Berry-Gallager asymptotic bounds. It is intuitive that to keep a queue stable under a lower bound constraint on the average utility a minimum number of customers have to be served per unit time. This in turn implies that queue stability requires a minimum average service cost expenditure. In the thesis we obtain an asymptotic characterization of the minimum average delay for monotone stationary policies subject to an upper bound constraint on the average service cost and a lower bound constraint on the average utility, in the asymptotic regime where the average service cost constraint is made arbitrarily close to the above minimum average service cost. In the thesis, we obtain asymptotic lower bounds on the minimum average delay for the cases for which lower bounds were previously not known. The asymptotic characterization of the minimum average delay for monotone stationary policies, for both continuous time and discrete time models, is obtained via geometric bounds on the stationary probability of the queue length, in the above asymptotic regime. The restriction to monotone stationary policies enables us to obtain an intuitive explanation for the behaviour of the asymptotic lower bounds using the above geometric bounds on the stationary probability distribution of the queue length. The geometric bounds on the stationary probability of the queue length also lead to a partial asymptotic characterization of the structure of any optimal monotone stationary policy, in the above asymptotic regime, which was not available in previous work. Furthermore, the geometric bounds on the stationary probability can be extended to analyse the tradeoff problem in other scenarios, such as for other continuous time queueing models, multiple user communication models, queueing models with service time control, and queueing models with general holding costs. Usually, queueing models with integer valued queue evolution, are approximated by queueing models with real valued queue evolution and strictly convex service cost functions for analytical tractability. Using the asymptotic bounds, we show that for some cases the average delay does not grow to infinity in the asymptotic regime, although the approximate model suggests that the average delay does grow to infinity. In other cases where the average delay does grow to infinity in the asymptotic regime, our results illustrate that the tradeoff behaviour of the approximate model is different from that of the original integer valued queueing model unless the service cost function is modelled as the piecewise linear lower convex envelope of the service cost function for the original model.

Le modèle d'accrochage de polymère décrit le comportement d'une chaîne de Markov en interaction avec un état donné. Cette interaction peut attirer ou repousser la chaîne de Markov et elle est modulée par deux paramètres, h et β. Quand β = 0 on parle de modèle homogène, qui est complètement solvable. Le modèle désordonné, i.e. quand β > 0, est mathématiquement le plus intéressant. Dans ce cas, l'interaction dépend d'une source d'aléa extérieur indépendant de la chaîne de Markov, appelée désordre. L'interaction est réalisée en modifiant la loi originelle de la chaîne de Markov par une mesure de Gibbs et la probabilité obtenue définit le modèle d'accrochage de polymère. Le but principal est d'étudier et de comprendre la structure des trajectoires typiques de la chaîne de Markov sous cette nouvelle probabilité. Le premier sujet de recherche concerne le modèle d'accrochage de polymère où le désordre est à queues lourdes et où le temps de retour de la chaîne de Markov suit une distribution sous-exponentielle. Dans notre deuxième résultat nous étudions le modèle d'accrochage de polymère avec un désordre à queues légères et le temps de retour de la chaîne de Markov avec une distribution à queues polynomiales d'exposant α > 0. On peut démontrer qu'il existe un point critique, h(β). Notre but est comprendre le comportement du point critique quand β -> 0. La réponse dépend de la valeur de α. Dans la littérature on a des résultats précis pour α < ½ et α > 1. Nous montrons que α ∈ (1/2, 1) le comportement du modèle dans la limite du désordre faible est universel et le point critique, opportunément changé d'échelle, converge vers la même quantité donnée par un modèle continu / The pinning model describes the behavior of a Markov chain in interaction with a distinguished state. This interaction can attract or repel the Markov chain path with a force tuned by two parameters, h and β. If β = 0 we obtain the homogeneous pinning model, which is completely solvable. The disordered pinning model, i.e. when β > 0, is most challenging and mathematically interesting. In this case the interaction depends on an external source of randomness, independent of the Markov chain, called disorder. The interaction is realized by perturbing the original Markov chain law via a Gibbs measure, which defines the Pinning Model. Our main aim is to understand the structure of a typical Markov chain path under this new probability measure. The first research topic of this thesis is the pinning model in which the disorder is heavy-tailed and the return times of the Markov chain have a sub-exponential distribution. In our second result we consider a pinning model with a light-tailed disorder and the return times of the Markov chain with a polynomial tail distribution, with exponent α > 0. It is possible to show that there exists a critical point, h(β). Our goal is to understand the behavior of the critical point when β -> 0. The answer depends on the value of α and in the literature there are precise results only for the case α < ½ et α > 1. We show that for α ∈ (1/2, 1) the behavior of the pinning model in the weak disorder limit is universal and the critical point, suitably rescaled, converges to the related quantity of a continuum model

Η εποχή της παγκοσμιοποίησης και του ψηφιακού κόσμου έχει δημιουργήσει ένα νέο είδος κοινωνίας της πληροφορίας και οικονομίας βασισμένης στη γνώση, τα οποία αλλάζουν την ανθρώπινη συμπεριφορά. Αυτό επιδρά σε πολλούς τομείς όπως στην πολιτική, στα οικονομικά και στην κοινωνία. Η τεχνολογία της πληροφορίας και της επικοινωνίας (Information and Communication Technology, ICT), θεωρείται ένα πανίσχυρο εργαλείο που παίζει βασικό ρόλο σ’ αυτές τις αλλαγές. Παρέχει έναν εναλλακτικό τρόπο επικοινωνίας μεταξύ κυβέρνησης και πολιτών μέσω ηλεκτρονικών υπηρεσιών. Αυτές οι υπηρεσίες μπορούν να οδηγήσουν στη διαφάνεια της κυβερνητικής διαχείρισης στο δημοκρατικό κόσμο. Ο όρος Ηλεκτρονική Διακυβέρνηση (Electronic Government, επίσης γνωστός και ως e-gov) αναφέρεται στη χρήση των τεχνολογιών της πληροφορικής και των υπολογιστών ως πλατφόρμα για την ανταλλαγή πληροφοριών, παροχή υπηρεσιών και πραγματοποίηση συναλλαγών με πολίτες, επιχειρήσεις και άλλα σκέλη της κυβέρνησης. Επίσης, η ευρεία χρήση του Διαδικτύου έχει οδηγήσει στην ανάδειξη μιας ποικιλίας ηλεκτρονικών υπηρεσιών, γνωστών ως “e-services”. Τα Ηλεκτρονικά Εισιτήρια, ή αλλιώς “e-Tickets”, αποτελούν παράδειγμα ηλεκτρονικών υπηρεσιών. Γενικά μιλώντας, τα ηλεκτρονικά εισιτήρια είναι αντίστοιχα με τα έντυπα εισιτήρια και αποδεικνύουν ότι ο κάτοχός τους έχει πληρώσει ή δικαιούται μια υπηρεσία, όπως παραδείγματος χάριν είσοδο σε μέρος διασκέδασης, αναβάθμιση λογισμικού μέσω internet, χρήση κάποιου μέσου μαζικής μεταφοράς. Τα έντυπα και τα ηλεκτρονικά εισιτήρια εμφανίζονται επίσης σε συστήματα διαχείρισης ροής πελατών για ιδιωτικούς ή δημόσιους οργανισμούς και επιχειρήσεις που αντιμετωπίζουν το πρόβλημα των μεγάλων ουρών και χρόνων αναμονής. Τέτοιες περιπτώσεις είναι τράπεζες, φαρμακεία, ταχυδρομεία, νοσοκομεία, εμπορικά κέντρα, αστυνομικές υπηρεσίες και υπηρεσίες ευρέσεως εργασίας. Στις περιπτώσεις αυτές, ο πελάτης εισέρχεται στο χώρο υποδοχής, λαμβάνει ένα εισιτήριο και μπαίνει σε μια ουρά αναμονής μέχρι να έρθει η ώρα εξυπηρέτησής του οπότε και ειδοποιείται να προσέλθει στο χώρο εξυπηρέτησης. Τα συστήματα αυτά, παρά τα πλεονεκτήματα που έχουν, παρουσιάζουν κάποιες ελλείψεις οι οποίες μπορούν να συνοψιστούν στις εξής: Ο πελάτης πρέπει να προσέλθει στο χώρο υποδοχής για να λάβει το εισιτήριο, δεν υπάρχει δηλαδή κάποιο σύστημα παραγωγής ηλεκτρονικών εισιτηρίων ώστε ο πελάτης να λαμβάνει ηλεκτρονικά εισιτήρια πριν μεταβεί στους χώρους του οργανισμού ή της επιχείρησης. Επίσης, ο πελάτης πρέπει να περιμένει μέχρι να εξυπηρετηθεί στους χώρους αναμονής του οργανισμού ή της επιχείρησης μιας και δεν υπάρχει σύστημα με το οποίο να ενημερώνεται όποια στιγμή το θελήσει για τον ανανεωμένο χρόνο αναμονής του. Στον τομέα των τραπεζών, οι τραπεζικοί οργανισμοί παρέχουν ένα ευρύ σύνολο ηλεκτρονικών υπηρεσιών που περιλαμβάνουν διαδικτυακές υπηρεσίες και υπηρεσίες μέσω κινητών συσκευών και αφορούν οικονομικές συναλλαγές και υπηρεσίες πληροφόρησης. Στις ηλεκτρονικές υπηρεσίες τους δεν περιλαμβάνονται ωστόσο υπηρεσίες για ηλεκτρονική κράτηση θέσης, μέσω ηλεκτρονικών εισιτηρίων, στις ουρές αναμονής των υποκαταστημάτων τους, για τους πελάτες που θέλουν να εξυπηρετηθούν με αυτόν τον τρόπο. Επίσης δεν υπάρχουν υπηρεσίες που να ενημερώνουν τον κάτοχο ενός ηλεκτρονικού εισιτηρίου όποια στιγμή το θελήσει για τον ανανεωμένο χρόνο αναμονής του. Στα πλαίσια της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας, αναπτύχθηκε ένα ολοκληρωμένο σύστημα εφαρμογών για παραγωγή και εξυπηρέτηση Ηλεκτρονικών Εισιτηρίων. Το ηλεκτρονικό αυτό σύστημα επιτρέπει τη δημιουργία ηλεκτρονικών εισιτηρίων αναμονής και την εξυπηρέτηση των κατόχων τους σε ένα σύστημα εικονικών τραπεζών. Βασικές λειτουργίες του συστήματος είναι η δυνατότητα που δίνει στους χρήστες να αιτούνται ηλεκτρονικά εισιτήρια πριν μεταβούν στους χώρους εξυπηρέτησης μέσω διαδικτυακών εφαρμογών και εφαρμογών για φορητές συσκευές χειρός, όπως επίσης και η δυνατότητα που δίνει στους κατόχους των ηλεκτρονικών εισιτηρίων να ενημερώνονται οποιαδήποτε στιγμή θελήσουν, για τον τρέχοντα χρόνο αναμονής που αντιστοιχεί στο εισιτήριό τους. Το σύστημα αυτό αποτελεί μια από τις πρώτες προσπάθειες όχι μόνο στον τομέα των τραπεζικών οργανισμών αλλά στον ευρύτερο τομέα διαχείρισης ηλεκτρονικών εισιτηρίων για ουρές αναμονής. Η δομή της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας έχει ως εξής: Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο γίνεται μια εισαγωγή και παρουσίαση της έννοιας της Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης και των διαστάσεών της. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο γίνεται εκτενής αναφορά στις πολιτικές που εφαρμόζονται σε εθνικό και ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο για την Ηλεκτρονική Διακυβέρνηση. Σε ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο γίνεται αναφορά στη στρατηγική i2010 και στην πρωτοβουλία e-Europe, ενώ σε εθνικό επίπεδο παρουσιάζεται το πρόγραμμα της Κοινωνίας της Πληροφορίας και η αναπτυξιακή στρατηγική της χώρας μας για το διάστημα 2007 – 2013. Στο κεφάλαιο αυτό παρουσιάζονται και κάποια παραδείγματα από το διεθνή χώρο, βέλτιστων πρακτικών Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης. Στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο δίνεται έμφαση στην κατάσταση που επικρατεί στη χώρα μας σχετικά με την Ηλεκτρονική Διακυβέρνηση. Παρουσιάζεται το «Ελληνικό Πλαίσιο Παροχής Υπηρεσιών Ηλεκτρονικής Διακυβέρνησης και Πρότυπα Διαλειτουργικότητας» και συγκεκριμένα η αρχιτεκτονική του πλαισίου και τα συστατικά του μέρη, καθώς και η έκθεση του World Economic Forum 2007 – 2008. Στο τέταρτο κεφάλαιο γίνεται παρουσίαση της έννοιας των Ηλεκτρονικών Εισιτηρίων και των τομέων εφαρμογής τους. Πιο αναλυτικά παρουσιάζεται ο τομέας εφαρμογής που αφορά στη διαχείριση της ροής των πελατών, με παρουσίαση των δυο πιο γνωστών συστημάτων διεθνώς. Στη συνέχεια γίνεται αναφορά στις υπηρεσίες που παρέχουν σήμερα οι τραπεζικοί οργανισμοί και δίνεται έμφαση στις κατηγορίες ηλεκτρονικών υπηρεσιών, οι οποίες και παρουσιάζονται αναλυτικά. Στο τέλος του κεφαλαίου περιγράφεται η σημερινή κατάσταση στην Ελλάδα στον τομέα των ηλεκτρονικών τραπεζικών συναλλαγών. Στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζεται το Ολοκληρωμένο Σύστημα Εφαρμογών για Παραγωγή και Εξυπηρέτηση Ηλεκτρονικών Εισιτηρίων που υλοποιήθηκε στα πλαίσια της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας. Πιο αναλυτικά, παρουσιάζεται η αρχιτεκτονική του συστήματος και τα συστατικά του μέρη: η Βάση Δεδομένων, οι Μηχανισμοί Υπολογισμού Μέσου Χρόνου Αναμονής και Μέσου Χρόνου Εξυπηρέτησης, ο Διαδικτυακός Τόπος, η Τοπική Εφαρμογή PDA, οι Διαδικτυακές Υπηρεσίες εξυπηρέτησης αιτήσεων Διαδικτυακού Τόπου και Τοπικής Εφαρμογής PDA, η Τοπική Εφαρμογή Προσομοίωσης Τραπεζών και η Διαδικτυακή Υπηρεσία εξυπηρέτησης αιτήσεων Τοπικής Εφαρμογής Προσομοίωσης Τραπεζών. Τέλος γίνεται μια σύνοψη των πλεονεκτημάτων του συστήματος και παρουσιάζονται προτάσεις μελλοντικής βελτίωσης. Στο έκτο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζονται οι τεχνολογίες που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν για την ανάπτυξη του Ολοκληρωμένου Συστήματος Εφαρμογών για Παραγωγή και Εξυπηρέτηση Ηλεκτρονικών Εισιτηρίων. Στο έβδομο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζεται η βιβλιογραφία στην οποία βασίστηκε η συγγραφή της διπλωματικής εργασίας. / The era of globalization or digital world has created a new kind of information society and knowledge-based economy, which change our human behavior. This has effects on many aspects such as politics, economic, and society. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is claimed as the powerful tool which plays an important role on those changes. It provides an alternative channel for government and citizens’ communication of new services, e.g. providing information source, collaboration between stakeholders. Such e-Services could lead to transparency of government administration in democracy world. The term Electronic Government (e-Government) refers to the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. The widespread use of Internet has recently led to the emergence of a variety of electronic services, also known as “e-services”. Electronic tickets, or e-tickets, are an example of such a class of e-services. Generally speaking, e-tickets are the Internet counterpart of real-world tickets, and give evidence that the holder has paid or is entitled to some service (e.g., entering a place of entertainment, upgrading a software from the Internet). Paper and Electronic Tickets also appear in customer flow management systems for private and public organizations or enterprises, which face the problem of big queues and waiting times. Such cases include banks, pharmacies, post offices, hospitals, shopping malls, police stations, employment services. In these cases, customers enter the reception area, get a ticket and enter a waiting queue until their time to be served arrives. That time, they are informed to enter the service area. These systems, despite their advantages, have a few deficiencies which are summarized below: Customers have to enter the reception area in order to get a ticket. There exists no electronic tickets production system for customers to receive e-tickets before they arrive at the building. Moreover, customers have to wait somewhere in the facilities of the organization or enterprise until they will be served, as there exists no system to inform them whenever they want about their refreshed waiting time. In regard of the banks sector, bank organizations provide a wide variety of e-services which include internet services and services for mobile devices. These services involve financial transactions and information services. However, banks e-services don’t include services for electronic reservations in waiting queues using e-tickets, for customers who want to be served in bank branches. Moreover, banks e-services don’t include services with which e-ticket holders can be informed whenever they want about their refreshed waiting time. In this thesis, an Applications Integrated System for Creating and Servicing e-Tickets was developed. The integrated system allows e-tickets creation and their holders’ service from a set of virtual banks. The system’s basic functionality includes e-tickets creation, via internet applications and applications for mobile devices, before customers reach the servicing area, as well as informing e-ticket holders, whenever they want, about their refreshed waiting time. The integrated system constitutes one of the first attempts, not only in the bank organizations sector, but in the wider sector of managing e-tickets for waiting queues. The thesis structure is organized as follows: The first chapter introduces and presents the concept of e-Government and its aspects. The second chapter includes a comprehensive reference to the European and National policies for e-Government. The European policies include the strategy i2010 and the e-Europe initiative, while the national policies include the Operational Program of Information Society and developmental strategy for years 2007 – 2013. This chapter also includes best practices of e-Government in the international arena. The third chapter revolves around the current situation in our country regarding e-Government. The “Greek Framework for e-Government Services Provision and Interoperability Templates” is presented and distinctly, the architecture and the various components of the framework, as well as the exhibition of the World Economic Forum 2007-2008. The fourth chapter presents the concept of e-ticket and its application domain. Namely, the application sector concerning customer flow management is described, followed by the two most important systems worldwide. Next, the services provided by banks are reported, laying emphasis on the categories of e-services, which are presented thoroughly. In the end of the chapter, the current status in the domain of electronic bank transactions in Greece is presented. The fifth chapter presents the Integrated System for Creating and Servicing e-Tickets which was developed for this thesis. More explicitly, the chapter presents the system architecture and all of its components: the Database, the Mean Waiting Time and Servicing Time Computing Mechanisms, the Web Site, the PDA Local Application, the Web Services for servicing requests made by the Web Site and the PDA Local Application, the Banks Simulation Local Application, the Web Service for servicing requests made by the Banks Simulation Local Application. In the end, the chapter summarizes the Integrated System’s advantages and presents proposals for future improvements. The sixth chapter presents the technologies being used for the development of the Integrated System for Creating and Servicing e-Tickets. The seventh chapter presents the bibliography in which the composition of this thesis was based.

In my dissertation, I present ATLAS — the Auto-Training Look-Ahead Scheduler. ATLAS improves service to applications with regard to two non-functional properties: timeliness and overload detection. Timeliness is an important requirement to ensure user interface responsiveness and the smoothness of multimedia operations. Overload can occur when applications ask for more computation time than the machine can offer. Interactive systems have to handle overload situations dynamically at runtime. ATLAS provides timely service to applications, accessible through an easy-to-use interface. Deadlines specify timing requirements, workload metrics describe jobs. ATLAS employs machine learning to predict job execution times. Deadline misses are detected before they occur, so applications can react early.