edited by Javier A Barria (Imperial College London, UK)

Communication networks and computer systems research is entering a new phase in which many of the established models and techniques of the last twenty years are being challenged. The research community is continuing to free itself from past intellectual constraints so that it may fully exploit the convergence of computing and communications. Evaluating the performance of emerging communications and computer systems constitutes a huge challenge. Thus, current research provides a set of heterogeneous tools and techniques embracing the uncertainties of time and space varying environments when the requests for diverse services are made in real time, and with very different quality of service expectations.

These novel techniques will lead to fast and economic service deployment and effective dynamic resource management, and hence to new business strategies and infrastructures that will facilitate the emergence of future services and applications.

This volume contains contributions and presentations made by leading international researchers at a workshop which was held in April 2004 to honour Professor Erol Gelenbe on the occasion of his inaugural lecture as the Dennis Gabor Chair at Imperial College London.

• Erol Gelenbe's Contributions to Computer and Networks Performance (A Bensoussan)
• Rethinking Incentives for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (E Huang et al.)
• Fair and Efficient Allocation of Resources in the Internet (R M Salles & J A Barria)
• The Locality Principle (P J Denning)
• A Simulation-Based Performance Analysis of Epoch Task Scheduling in Distributed Processors (H Karatza)
• Counter Intuitive Aspects of Statistical Independence in Steady State Distributions (J P Buzen)
• The Non-Stationary Loss Queue: A Survey (K A Alnowibet & H Perros)
• Stabilization Techniques for Load-Dependent Queueing Networks Algorithms (G Casale & G Serazzi)
• Modelling and Simulation of Interdependent Critical Infrastructure: The Road Ahead (E Casalicchio et al.)
• Stochastic Automata Networks and Lumpable Stochastic Bounds: Bounding Availability (J M Fourneau et al.)
• Aggregation Methods for Cross-Layer Simulations (M Becker et al.)
• Space and Time Capacity in Dense Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (P Jacquet)
• Stochastic Properties of Peer-to-Peer Communication Architecture in a Military Setting (D P Gaver & P A Jacobs)
• Quantifying the Quality of Audio and Video Transmissions over the Internet: The PSQA Approach (G Rubino)
• A Study of the Dynamic Behavior of a Web Site (M C Calzarossa & D Tessera)