The importance of the misframe times for DS1 frame synchronization has often been addressed in designing and using network elements and mediation units. By extending the work of J. H. Eu and W. W. Rollins (1991), Markov chain first passage time analysis is used to derive higher moments of the misframe times in both random and burst error environments. This methodology is of great value in evaluating frame synchronization techniques for digital transmission systems. By experimenting with several out-of-frame detection schemes and reasonable values for bit error ratio (BER), it is shown that misframe times are always approximately exponentially distributed for all schemes.>

A sampling resource allocation problem formulation for determining the optimal sample size for each of multiple sampling activities competing for a single sampling resource is described. The problem is formulated as a nonlinear knapsack problem with lower and upper binding restrictions. The objective function based on the squared coefficient of variation is used for the real-time performance monitoring of digital signals. This formulation is an extension of the classical method of determining the minimum sample size for a single sampling activity. A solution procedure is also provided.>