DDC: A Vision for a Disaggregated Datacenter

Datacenters of today have maintained the same architecture for decades using the server as the primary building block. However, this traditional approach suffers from under-utilization of its resources, often caused by over-allocating these resources when deploying applications to accommodate worst-case scenarios. Specifically, servers can quickly drain their over-allocated memory resources while their CPUs are not fully utilized. This problem gives rise to a different school of thought, where resources are disaggregated instead of tightly bound to servers. This can address the utilization problem by allowing each type of resource to be allocated, utilized and freed separately as required. New high performance communication protocols, like CXL, could pave the way for practical implementations of resource disaggregation. In this article, we argue it is time to reconsider the datacenter architecture as a whole. We present our vision for a disaggregated datacenter aided by well-established computer architecture design methodologies

Development and implementation of guidelines for the management of depression: a systematic review

Objective: To evaluate the development and implementation of clinical practice guidelines for the management of depression globally. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of existing guidelines for the management of depression in adults with major depressive or bipolar disorder. For each identified guideline, we assessed compliance with measures of guideline development quality (such as transparency in guideline development processes and funding, multidisciplinary author group composition, systematic review of comparative efficacy research) and implementation (such as quality indicators). We compared guidelines from low- and middle-income countries with those from high-income countries. Findings: We identified 82 national and 13 international clinical practice guidelines from 83 countries in 27 languages. Guideline development processes and funding sources were explicitly specified in a smaller proportion of guidelines from low- and middle-income countries (8/29; 28%) relative to high-income countries (35/58; 60%). Fewer guidelines (2/29; 7%) from low- and middle-income countries, relative to high-income countries (22/58; 38%), were authored by a multidisciplinary development group. A systematic review of comparative effectiveness was conducted in 31% (9/29) of low- and middle-income country guidelines versus 71% (41/58) of high-income country guidelines. Only 10% (3/29) of low- and middle-income country and 19% (11/58) of high-income country guidelines described plans to assess quality indicators or recommendation adherence. Conclusion: Globally, guideline implementation is inadequately planned, reported and measured. Narrowing disparities in the development and implementation of guidelines in low- and middle-income countries is a priority. Future guidelines should present strategies to implement recommendations and measure feasibility, cost-effectiveness and impact on health outcomes

Combining inter and intra-line cache compression

Caches are essential to today's microprocessors. They close the huge speed gap between processors and memories. However, cache design presents an important tradeoff. A bigger cache size should increase performance and allow processors to perform faster, but it is also limited by its silicon, area, and power consumption costs. Today's caches often use half of the silicon area in processor chips and consume a lot of power. Instead of physically increasing the cache size, effective cache capacity can be substantially increased if the data inside the cache is compressed. Current cache compression techniques focus only on one granularity, either compressing inside one cache line, or compressing similar cache lines together. In this work, we combine both compression techniques to leverage both inter-line and intra-line compression. We find that combining both techniques results in better compression than previously described methods, and also maintains the same performance as a normal uncompressed cache when running incompressible applications. We study and address the design considerations and tradeoffs that arise from such design. We address issues related to the design like cache structure and replacement policies. Then we present an implementation that achieves the best possible compression and performance while maintaining overheads as low as possible.Applied Science, Faculty ofElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofGraduat

Comparison of 24-hour urinary protein and protein-to-creatinine ratio in the assessment of proteinuria

To determine the correlation between protein-to-creatinine ratio (PCR) and 24-hour urinary protein (UP), we measured proteinuria in 68 patients attending the nephrology clinic at Jordan University Hospital by 24-hour urine protein excretion and protein-to-creatinine ratio. The cutoff values for spot urine protein-to-creatinine ratio in predicting 24-hour protein "threshold" excretion of 0.5, 1.0 and 3.5 g/day were determined using receiver operating characteristic curves. A very good correlation (r= 0.832, P< 0.0001) was found between spot urine protein-to-creatinine ratio and 24-hour urine protein excretion. Bland-Altman plot showed the two tests had reasonable limits of agreement at low level of protein excretion but the limits became wider as the protein excretion increased. For protein excretion < 2.0 g/day, the limits of agreement of spot urine (PCR) and (UP) were +1.48 and -1.2 g/day. The spot urine protein-to-creatinine ratios of 0.72 (sensitivity 0.97; specificity 1.0), 1.2 (0.97; 0.89) and 3.23 (1.0; 0.86) mg/mg reliably predicted 24-hour urine total protein equivalent "thresholds" of 0.5, 1.0 and 3.5 g/day, respectively. We conclude that the protein-to-creatinine ratio in spot urine specimens is an accurate, convenient, and reliable method to estimate the protein excretion in urine. However, the protein-to-creatinine ratio will likely be within clinically acceptable limits only when proteinuria is at reasonably low levels

Spectrum of glomerulonephritis in adult Jordanians at Jordan university hospital

We retrospectively reviewed the records and histopathological findings of 64 ade-quate native kidney biopsies performed at the Jordan University Hospital from January 2002 through December 2006. The nephrotic syndrome (NS) was the main reason for biopsy in 51.6% of the cases and deterioration of kidney function in 31%. Primary glomerulonephritis (GN) was diagnosed in 59.4% of the biopsies, and focal segmental glomeulosclerosis (FSGS) was the most common pathology detected (17.2%). Systemic lupus erythematosis was found in 17 patients (26.6%), and it was the commonest secondary GN pathology

Mobile Learning Application for Helping Pupils in Learning Chemistry

Elementary school pupils can face different difficulties to learn different topics. Among the different topics, learning chemical elements and their different properties and interactions. A way to make the learning process easier and effective is using mobile learning. Mobile learning can contribute a new method to educate pupils different topics. Also, mobile learning has different advantages over classical learning materials. Among the different advantages of using mobile learning is the fact that it enables pupils to interact with learning materials, visualize different learning concepts, and learning anytime and anywhere. This article presents an exploration study related to investigating the possible use of educational mobile App to learn chemistry course in elementary school. The article presents also a qualitative research methodology implemented by including 7 pupils. � The findings of this research show that mobile learning technology can be adopted for learning chemistry course in order to enable pupils to understand periodic table, chemical elements properties and their chemical interaction. Also, this study has shown that the proposed mobile application can be integrated in learning chemistry course for elementary school pupils.</p

Mobile Learning Application for Helping Pupils in Learning Chemistry

Elementary school pupils can face different difficulties to learn different topics. Among the different topics, learning chemical elements and their different properties and interactions. A way to make the learning process easier and effective is using mobile learning. Mobile learning can contribute a new method to educate pupils different topics. Also, mobile learning has different advantages over classical learning materials. Among the different advantages of using mobile learning is the fact that it enables pupils to interact with learning materials, visualize different learning concepts, and learning anytime and anywhere. This article presents an exploration study related to investigating the possible use of educational mobile App to learn chemistry course in elementary school. The article presents also a qualitative research methodology implemented by including 7 pupils. � The findings of this research show that mobile learning technology can be adopted for learning chemistry course in order to enable pupils to understand periodic table, chemical elements properties and their chemical interaction. Also, this study has shown that the proposed mobile application can be integrated in learning chemistry course for elementary school pupils

A virtual memory architecture to enhance STT-RAM performance as main memory

[abstract not available