The Wizard of OS: a Heartbeat for Legacy Multimedia Applications

Multimedia applications are often characterised by implicit temporal constraints but, in many cases, they are not programmed using any specialised real-time API. These "Legacy applications" have no way to communicate their temporal constraints to the OS kernel, and their quality of service (QoS), being necessarily linked to the temporal behaviour, fails to satisfy acceptable standards. In this paper we propose an innovative way for dealing with these applications, based on the combination of an on-line identification mechanism (which extracts from high-level observations such important parameters as the execution rate) and an adaptive scheduler (specialised for legacy applications) that identifies the correct amount of CPU needed by each application. Preliminary experimental results are reported, proving the effectiveness of the proposed idea in providing a widely used multimedia player on Linux with appropriate QoS guarantees, through an appropriate choice of the scheduling parameters. Finally, a detailed road-map is presented with the possible extensions to the approach

Self-tuning Schedulers for Legacy Real-Time Applications

We present an approach for adaptive scheduling of soft real-time legacy applications (for which no timing information is exposed to the system). Our strategy is based on the combination of two techniques: 1) a real-time monitor that observes the sequence of events generated by the application to infer its activation period, 2) a feedback mechanism that adapts the scheduling parameters to ensure a timely execution of the application. By a thorough experimental evaluation of an implementation of our approach, we show its performance and its efficiency

Adaptive Real-Time Scheduling for Legacy Multimedia Applications

Multimedia applications are often executed on standard Personal Computers. The absence of established standards has hindered the adoption of real-time scheduling solutions in this class of applications. Developers have adopted a wide range of heuristic approaches to achieve an acceptable timing behaviour but the result is often unreliable. We propose a mechanism to extend the benefits of real-time scheduling to legacy applications based on the combination of two techniques: 1) a real-time monitor that observes and infers the activation period of the application, and 2) a feedback mechanism that adapts the scheduling parameters to improve its real-time performance

Editorial: Animal-environment interactions

Animal-environment interaction is a very complex topic with ancient origins. This multifaceted relationship, across a great diversity of natural environments and animal species, has helped develop a variable picture of livestock systems. Animals interact with the environment in which they are integrated by establishing reciprocal relationships. Environmental conditions, such as climate, nutrition, structures, management, and relationships with conspecifics and humans, affect the characteristics, health, and productivity of animals. In turn, animals influence aspects and quality of the environment such as water, air, and soil. Over the past three decades, the processes and effects of this interaction changed as animals, the environment, technology, and consumer demands evolved. Therefore, it is essential to understand how to design and manage farming systems to make them increasingly suitable to respond to the needs of a rapidly expanding world population and to the climate changes that already affect many areas of our planet, while simultaneously ensuring an adequate balance among animal welfare, animal production, and the impact livestock systems have on the environment

New insights into the quality characteristics of milk from Modenese breed compared with Italian Friesian

This study examined the milk quality of the autochthonous cattle breed Modenese (MO) in comparison with Italian Friesian (IF), at peak and mid lactation, with the aim to support the interest in sustainability of the local cattle breeds in Europe. Forty-eight individual milk samples were collected from 11 MO and 14 IF pluriparous cows, housed in a free stall barn under similar conditions of feeding and management, at 8 and 21 weeks post-calving; daily milk yield (MY) and body condition score (BCS) were individually recorded. Breed differences were observed, being MY lower in MO cows, but BCS, titratable acidity, freezing point, casein (MC), total calcium (Ca), total phosphorus (P) and colloidal P contents were higher compared to IF cows. Time affected BCS, MY, milk protein (MP), MC, urea, casein P and the micellar content of colloidal Ca and colloidal inorganic P. A factorial analysis was performed and four common factors were obtained with a cumulative explained variance of 77.7% of the total original. MO milk showed a nutritionally interesting mineral profile and processing properties suitable for the production of typical cheese that could be interesting for improving the interest in the conservation of animal genetic resources

double blind placebo controlled randomized trial on low dose azithromycin prophylaxis in patients with primary antibody deficiencies

Background Lacking protective antibodies, patients with primary antibody deficiencies (PADs) experience frequent respiratory tract infections, leading to chronic pulmonary damage. Macrolide prophylaxis has proved effective in patients with chronic respiratory diseases. Objective We aimed to test the efficacy and safety of orally administered low-dose azithromycin prophylaxis in patients with PADs. Methods We designed a 3-year, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial to test whether oral azithromycin (250 mg administered once daily 3 times a week for 2 years) would reduce respiratory exacerbations in patients with PADs and chronic infection–related pulmonary diseases. The primary end point was the number of annual respiratory exacerbations. Secondary end points included time to first exacerbation, additional antibiotic courses, number of hospitalizations, and safety. Results Eighty-nine patients received azithromycin (n = 44) or placebo (n = 45). The number of exacerbations was 3.6 (95% CI, 2.5-4.7) per patient-year in the azithromycin arm and 5.2 (95% CI, 4.1-6.4) per patient-year in the placebo arm (P = .02). In the azithromycin group the hazard risk for having an acute exacerbation was 0.5 (95% CI, 0.3-0.9; P = .03), and the hazard risk for hospitalization was 0.5 (95% CI, 0.2-1.1; P = .04). The rate of additional antibiotic treatment per patient-year was 2.3 (95% CI, 2.1-3.4) in the intervention group and 3.6 (95% CI, 2.9-4.3) in the placebo group (P = .004). Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae were the prevalent isolates, and they were not susceptible to macrolides in 25% of patients of both arms. Azithromycin's safety profile was comparable with that of placebo. Conclusion The study reached the main outcome centered on the reduction of exacerbation episodes per patient-year, with a consequent reduction in additional courses of antibiotics and risk of hospitalization

An Estimate of the Effects from Precision Livestock Farming on a Productivity Index at Farm Level. Some Evidences from a Dairy Farms’ Sample of Lombardy

This paper aimed at verifying if and to what extent the use of information technologies for dairy farming positively affects productivity of farmed herd. To do this we estimated the effects of precision farming on a productivity index at herd level, utilizing individual farms data of about 500 livestock farms. Farms are specialized in bovine milk production and are localized in Lombardy, that is one of the most important areas of Italian dairy farming. Using a two-stage treatment regression model, to solve the selection bias due to both observed and un-observed individual heterogeneity in the technology adoption, the study found a positive relationship between adopter status and the proxy of herd productivity

A Survey of Italian Dairy Farmers’ Propensity for Precision Livestock Farming Tools

A targeted survey was designed with the aim of describing the diffusion of precision livestock farming (PLF) tools in one of the most intensive dairy farming provinces in Italy. Technicians at the Provincial Breeder Association of Cremona interviewed 490 dairy farmers and obtained data regarding the role and age of the respondents; the land owned by the farmers; their herd sizes (HS, lactating plus dry cows; small HS < 101, medium HS 101–200, large HS > 200 cows/herd); their average 305 day milk yield (low MY < 9501, medium MY 9501–10,500, high MY > 10,500 kg/head); the cow to employed worker ratio (low CW < 33, medium CW 33–47, high CW > 47 cows/worker); the use of PLF tools to monitor production, reproduction, and health; and the criteria and motivations for investing in PLF tools. The use of automated MY recording and estrus detection systems was primarily associated with HS (more present in larger farms), followed by MY (more present in more productive farms), and then CW (more present with a high cow: worker ratio). Concern about the time required to manage data was the most common subjective issue identified as negatively affecting the purchase of these tools. The future of PLF use in this region will depend upon the availability of an effective selection of tools on the market

UBuild: Automated testing and performance evaluation of embedded linux systems

This paper describes uBuild, a novel tool designed to support the automated execution of repeatable and controlled tests of embedded Linux systems. This is useful for continuous integration purposes, and to evaluate the impact of various design and implementation options on the system's performance. uBuild allows the designer to build the embedded system image from scratch, by compiling all the needed software from the source code and by even building the needed cross-compilation toolchain if required. It provides deterministic control on the configuration options used to build the cross-compilation toolchain, the Linux kernel, the system libraries, and all the programs. In this way, the effects of each option can be tested and evaluated in isolation. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland