Aggregation effects in maximum covering models

The level of aggregation is critical in discrete location analyses as it affects the level of data collection required, computation times and the usefulness of the analyses. We examine the effects of three alternative nodal aggregation schemes on (i) the model's solution times, (ii) the locational decisions indicated by the maximum covering model, (iii) the coverage provided by the aggregate solutions compared with the optimal solutions, and (iv) the coverage predicted by the aggregate model compared with the coverage that results from using the aggregate model's facility sites and the disaggregate demands. The results suggest that considerable aggregation can be tolerated without incurring large errors in total coverage, but that location errors are introduced at moderate levels of aggregation. The magnitude of these errors is significantly affected by the aggregation scheme employed.     

Performance issues of bandwidth management in ATM networks

In our days, efficient management of the available network resources becomes a critical issue, both from a functional point of view (so that users can be provided with the bandwidth they need), and an economical point of view (so that carriers can satisfactorily and efficiently serve as many customers as possible and at the same time increase their revenue). In this paper we consider a bandwidth control scheme (i.e. managed bandwidth service) for an ATM network infrastructure which is applied to the Greek research and technology network (GRNET). We present some methods that we have tested (in a simulation setting) in order to increase the efficiency of the system and the utilization of the available bandwidth. More specifically, we consider a bandwidth‐resizing algorithm for virtual paths, in order to keep the allocated bandwidth very close to the bandwidth actually used. This leads to an increased number of accepted requests and better network utilization. We, also, use the simulation results in order to get an estimation of the effective bandwidth for VBR paths that can be used in call admission. Finally, we consider a semi‐offline scheme where requests are gathered and considered for acceptance in regular intervals. Simulation results show an increase in the utilization of resources. As a further improvement, we allow connections to be allocated a little before or after the time initially requested. This leads to further improvement in network utilization. All the improvement schemes were tested with the ATM‐TN simulator and the results look promising. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.