We show in this paper how the Laplace transform θ* of the duration θ of an excursion by the occupation process {Λt} of an M/M/∞ system above a given threshold can be obtained by means of continued fraction analysis. The representation of θ* by a continued fraction is established and the [m−1/m] Padé approximants are computed by means of well known orthogonal polynomials, namely associated Charlier polynomials. It turns out that the continued fraction considered is an S fraction and as a consequence the Stieltjes transform of some spectral measure. Then, using classic asymptotic expansion properties of hypergeometric functions, the representation of the Laplace transform θ* by means of Kummer's function is obtained. This allows us to recover an earlier result obtained via complex analysis and the use of the strong Markov property satisfied by the occupation process {Λt}. The continued fraction representation enables us to further characterize the distribution of the random variable θ.

In this paper we analyze a single server two-queue model with Bernoulli schedules. This discipline is very flexible and contains the exhaustive and 1-limited disciplines as special cases. We formulate the queueing system as a Riemann boundary value problem with shift. The boundary value problem is solved by exploring a Fredholm integral equation around the unit circle. Some numerical examples are presented at the end of the paper.

Let Δ = {z:|Z|<1}, Γ={z:|z|=1}, and ℳ denote the set of complex-valued Borel measures on Γ. Let Kα(z)=(1−z)−α for α>0 and K0(z)=log 1/(1−z). For α > 0 let ℱα denote the family of functions f on Δ having the property that there exists a measure μ∈ℳ such that

for |z|<1. When α=0, this condition is replaced by

Convergence results are given for transient characteristics of an M/M/∞ system such as the period of time the occupation process remains above a given state, the area swept by this process above this state and the number of customers arriving during this period. These results are precise in contrast to approximations derived in the framework of the Poisson clumping heuristic introduced by Aldous.

In this paper, we consider a class of strong symmetric distributions, which we refer to as the strong c-symmetric distributions. We provide, as the main result of this paper, conditions satisfied by the recurrence relations of certain polynomials associated with these distributions.

Methods from the theory of orthogonal polynomials are extended to L-polynomials . By this means the authors and W. B. Jones (J. Math. Anal. Appl. 98 (1984), 528–554) solved the strong Hamburger moment problem, that is, given a double sequence , to find a distribution function ψ(t), non-decreasing, with an infinitenumber of points of increase and bounded on −∞ < t < ∞, such that for all integers . In this article further menthods such as analogues of the Lioville-Ostrogradski formula and of the Christoffel-Darboux formula are developed to investigated When the moment porblem has a unique solution. This will be the case if and only if a sequence of nested disks associated with the sequence has only a point as its intersection (the so called limit point case).

Given a measurable function k non-negative a.e. on the circle |z| = 1, when is the outer function Tk (see(1.3)) continuous on the disk |z| < 1 and further, Dirichlet-finite: We shall show, among other results, that the answer is in the positive if , with ess inf k > 0.