Fairness in overloaded parallel queues

Maximizing throughput for heterogeneous parallel server queues has received quite a bit of attention from the research community and the stability region for such systems is well understood. However, many real-world systems have periods where they are temporarily overloaded. Under such scenarios, the unstable queues often starve limited resources. This work examines what happens during periods of temporary overload. Specifically, we look at how to fairly distribute stress. We explore the dynamics of the queue workloads under the MaxWeight scheduling policy during long periods of stress and discuss how to tune this policy in order to achieve a target fairness ratio across these workloads

Developing New Strategies to Support Future Caregivers of the Aged in Canada: Projections of Need and their Policy Implications

Projections of future need for Canadian continuing care services typically uses current utilization patterns and population aging. Accurately assessing this need is much more complex since disability patterns among the elderly are changing and availability of caregivers is affected by changes in family structure. This paper projects annual growth rates between 2001-2031 in the need for informal and formal support among elderly Canadians and discusses the policy implications of the increasing demand for informal caregivers. Using Statistics Canada's LifePaths micro-simulation model, these projections incorporate disability rates and the potential availability of informal caregivers. The authors conclude that continued focus on family to meet the needs of elderly Canadians without increased support is not sustainable in the long term. New strategies to support Canadian caregivers are proposed and their economic feasibility in the public and private markets are evaluated.population aging, caregiving, disability, informal and formal support

Tradurre il non metodo. Salvo el crepusculo e l'eredita' poetica di Julio Cortazar

Nel primo capitolo si analizzano la poetica di Julio Cortazar e tutti i componimenti inseriti nella raccolta "Salvo el crepusculo". Il capitolo centrale presenta la traduzione di tutte le poesie di "Salvo el crepusculo" che non sono state incluse nella silloge "Le ragioni della collera" a cura di Gianni Toti. Il capitolo conclusivo contiene osservazioni linguistiche e traduttologiche sul lavoro svolto

Trade and Competitiveness of the Mediterranean Countries on the Olive Oil Market

In the context of the establishment of a Mediterranean Free Trade Area, the paper analyses the structure and competitiveness of the Mediterranean basin countries in the olive oil trade and gives a preliminary explanation of the likely impact of the next liberalization process and challenges for the EU Mediterranean countries. The paper starts showing the level of integration of the international olive oil market and underlining the main factors affecting the process. Than, after a brief explanation of the methodology adopted, it analyses the main results achieved. Conclusions try to understand the impact of the competitive scenario showed by the empirical analysis on the Euromediterranean olive oil market following the trade liberalization.International Relations/Trade,

Scambi commerciali agricoli e accordi di partenariato tra Unione Europea e Africa

The Cotonou Partnership Agreement, signed on 2000, marks the beginning of a new cooperation phase between ACP countries and the EU. The IV pillar of the Agreement, aimed at the creation of a free trade area, concerns the economic and trade cooperation and is targeted to make trade in line with the WTO rules and to allow the ACP countries a full participation to international trade understood as strategic condition for supporting growth and development. In this context, the trade relationships between the EU and Africa are of specific importance when referred to agricultural products. The liberalization process might have a significant impact for the EU as leading world exporter and importer of agricultural goods and the wider destination and origin market of the African food and agricultural products. On the African side, agricultural export are often the primary source of foreign exchange for food imports required for domestic food security. Furthermore, the new Partnership Agreement creates an additional market access only for the agricultural products that, however, might results strongly constrained by the limited supply potential and high EU SPS standards. Thus, the analysis of the costs and benefits connected to the liberalization process in both the EU and Africa is relevant for a better understanding of the forthcoming competitive scenario for the agricultural products. This is the topic of the paper that, with reference to the time period from 1995-2006, provides a preliminary analysis of the main features of the agricultural trade flows between the EU-25 and Africa; the competitive potential of the sector; the explanatory variables of the African export flows trends to the EU-25. Despite the EU is negotiating an Agreement with the African countries as a whole, the analysis also distinguishes among geographic areas in order to estimate the likely different impact of agricultural trade liberalization. To the same aim food and agricultural product are considered separately.Agricultural Trade, Trade and Development, Agricultural Competitiveness, Q17,