In real-time applications, the timing requirements a re the main c onstraints a nd their mastering is the predominant factor for a ssessing the quality of service. Timing con-straints span many application a reas, suc h a s industrial plant automation, embedded systems, vehicle control, nuclear plant monitoring, scientific e xperiment guidance, robotics, multimedia audio a nd video str eam conditioning, surgical operation moni-toring, and stock exchange orders follow-up. Applications trigger periodic or r andom events and r equire that the a ssociated com-puter system reacts before a given delay or a fixed time. The timing latitude to react is limited since transient data must.
