This book presents the results of an assessment of the state of robotics in Japan, South Korea, Western Europe and Australia and a comparison of robotics R&D programs in these countries with those in the United States. The comparisons include areas like robotic vehicles, space robotics, service robots, humanoid robots, networked robots, and robots for biological and medical applications, and based on criteria such as quality, scope, funding and commercialization. This important study identifies a number of areas where the traditional lead of the United States is being overtaken by...

In the present work we study the transient behavior of some two-state bulk queueing models with (i) Intermittently available server, i.e. the server goes either for rest or to attend some very urgent jobs when the queue length is greater than or equal to zero. The server has the option to start a fresh service instantaneously or to make interruption, but it is assumed that he completes the service in hand before the interruption, (ii) Multiple vacations, i.e. the server begins a vacation with probability one each time the system becomes empty. If the server returns...