In this paper, we investigate the performance of different dispatching and scheduling heuristics for batching tools in a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility (wafer fab) by means of discrete event simulation. Because the processing times of lots on batching tools are quite large compared to those of other processes, careful batching decisions may have a great impact on the performance of th...

Dynamic neural network toolkits such as PyTorch, DyNet, and Chainer offer more flexibility for implementing models that cope with data of varying dimensions and structure, relative to toolkits that operate on statically declared computations (e.g., TensorFlow, CNTK, and Theano). However, existing toolkits—both static and dynamic—require that the developer organize the computations into the batc...

What do well-known techniques such as gather/scatter for input/output, code downloading for system extension, message batching, mobile agents, and deferred calls for disconnected operation have in common? Despite being rather different techniques, all of them share a common piece of design (and, possibly, implementation) as their cornerstone: the BATCHING design pattern. All techniques mentione...

This study analyzes impacts by batch picking on picker blocking in narrow-aisle order picking, and determines appropriate batch formations for a better order picking throughput. We present multiple-pick analytical models to offer insights about picker blocking in batch picking. Several simulation studies over a variety of batching situations scrutinize order batching situations which give throu...

A true Video-on-Demand (VOD) system provides the ultimate flexibility in video services by allowing users to select any video programs, at any time, and to perform any VCR-like user interactions. To allow true VOD, one approach is to have a dedicated video stream for each customer. This is expensive, especially when multiple identical video streams are sent to multiple customers accessing the s...

Paxos is probably the most popular state machine replication protocol. Two optimizations that can greatly improve its performance are batching and pipelining. However, tuning these two optimizations to achieve high-throughput can be challenging, as their effectiveness depends on many parameters like the network latency and bandwidth, the speed of the nodes, and the properties of the application...

When designing steady-state computer simulation experiments, one is often faced with the choice of batching observations in one long run or replicating a number of smaller runs. Both methods are potentially useful in simulation output analysis. In its simplest form, the choice boils down to: Should we divide one long run into b adjacent, nonoverlapping batches, each of size m? Or should we cond...

This work characterizes the benefits of averaging techniques widely used in conjunction with stochastic gradient descent (SGD). In particular, this work sharply analyzes: (1) mini-batching, a method of averaging many samples of the gradient to both reduce the variance of a stochastic gradient estimate and for parallelizing SGD and (2) tail-averaging, a method involving averaging the final few i...

An interactive video-on-demand (VoD) system allows users to access video services, such as movies, electronic encyclopedia, interactive games, and educational videos from video servers on a broadband network. This paper develops a performance evaluation tool for the system design. In particular, a user activity model is developed to describe the usage of system resources, i.e., network bandwidt...

An interactive video-on-demand (VoD) system allows users to access video services, such as movies, electronic encyclopedia, interactive games, and educational videos from video servers on a broadband network. This paper develops a performance evaluation tool for the system design. In particular, a user activity model is developed to describe the usage of system resources, i.e., network bandwidt...