Percolation scheduling for non-VLIW machines

Percolation Scheduling, a technique for compile-time code parallelization, has proven very successful for exploiting fine-grain irregular parallelism in ordinary programs. Currently, this technology is targeted only to VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) machines, which have the advantages of 'free' synchronization and communication. Shared memory multi-processors can simulate the execution characteristics of VLIW machines with the use of static barriers. Preliminary results show that Percolation Scheduling can be used with good results on this type of architecture by increasing the granularity from operation level to source statement level, removing any redundant synchronization, and providing an efficient implementation of multi-way jumps

On the dimension of Z-sets

We offer a short and elementary proof that, for a Z-set A in a finite-dimensional ANR Y, dimA<dimY. This result is relevant to the study of group boundaries. The original proof by Bestvina and Mess relied on cohomological dimension theory.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

Equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy: prevalence, impact, and management.

Equine neuroaxonal dystrophy/equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder affecting many horse breeds. Clinical signs include a symmetric ataxia and an abnormal stance at rest, similar to cervical vertebral compressive myelopathy, equine protozoal myeloencephalitis, and equine herpesvirus 1 myeloencephalopathy. This review will provide an update on the disease prevalence, management, impact, and ongoing research

Fine-grain loop scheduling for MIMD machines

Previous algorithms for parallelizing loops on MIMD machines have been based on assigning one or more loop iterations to each processor, introducing synchronization as required. These methods exploit only iteration level parallelism, and ignore the parallelism that may exist at a lower level.In order to exploit parallelism both within and across iterations, our algorithm analyzes and schedules the loop at the statement level. The loop schedule reflects the expected communication and synchronization costs of the target machine. We provide test results that show that this algorithm can produce good speedup of loops on an MIMD machine

Ten years of the horse reference genome: insights into equine biology, domestication and population dynamics in the post-genome era.

The horse reference genome from the Thoroughbred mare Twilight has been available for a decade and, together with advances in genomics technologies, has led to unparalleled developments in equine genomics. At the core of this progress is the continuing improvement of the quality, contiguity and completeness of the reference genome, and its functional annotation. Recent achievements include the release of the next version of the reference genome (EquCab3.0) and generation of a reference sequence for the Y chromosome. Horse satellite-free centromeres provide unique models for mammalian centromere research. Despite extremely low genetic diversity of the Y chromosome, it has been possible to trace patrilines of breeds and pedigrees and show that Y variation was lost in the past approximately 2300 years owing to selective breeding. The high-quality reference genome has led to the development of three different SNP arrays and WGSs of almost 2000 modern individual horses. The collection of WGS of hundreds of ancient horses is unique and not available for any other domestic species. These tools and resources have led to global population studies dissecting the natural history of the species and genetic makeup and ancestry of modern breeds. Most importantly, the available tools and resources, together with the discovery of functional elements, are dissecting molecular causes of a growing number of Mendelian and complex traits. The improved understanding of molecular underpinnings of various traits continues to benefit the health and performance of the horse whereas also serving as a model for complex disease across species

Determining Faculty Perception of Ownership Rights of Online Course Content in Higher Education

With the ever increasing growth in the number of online courses offered by institutions of higher education, determining ownership of the content of these courses is becoming an important consideration. Many institutions have intellectual property policies in place that are either vague, outdated or non-existent when determining copyright ownership to online courses. Faculty members who are creating these courses are many times investing their own intellect into the course content, which would traditionally invoke copyright ownership over that content. However, courses being offered to students in an online format have created some confusion as to ownership rights over those courses. It is important that faculty members understand their rights to course content when intellectual property is involved. In future faculty development as well as establishment of university copyright policies, ownership rights should be very clearly determined and explained.;The purpose of this study is to determine the variables that most closely correspond to faculty perception of content ownership when developing and teaching online courses. The variables being studied are faculty rank and status within the institution, faculty academic discipline, number of years teaching in higher education and education level of the faculty members. It is based upon these variables that continuing education can be developed and customized for faculty members based upon their experiences within the institution and with regard to content development. Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) was used to determine those variables that were most significantly associated with faculty perception of ownership to content of online courses offered in higher education

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops\u27 Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework for the Development of Catechetical Materials for Young People of High School Age: Pedagogical and Theological Perspectives of Religious Studies Teachers in U.S. Catholic Secondary Schools

In 2007, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a document entitledDoctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework for the Development of Catechetical Materials for Young People of High School Age(United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, 2008; hereafter,Framework). The promulgation of theFrameworkconstituted the first time that the bishops sought to establish a uniform Religious Studies curriculum for all U.S. Catholic secondary schools. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of six Religious Studies teachers regarding their experience of teaching courses based on the USCCBFramework; specifically, these teachers\u27 experiences of theFramework\u27s impact on the theological content they teach and on their pedagogy. The researcher conducted two semi-structured, in-depth interviews with each of six participants. She also incorporated elements of Participatory Action Research (PAR) into the research design, attempting to engage the participants in a collaborative process of generating knowledge and considering potential avenues of action rooted in that knowledge. This study demonstrated that theFrameworksubstantially alters the theological content that students learn in their Religious Studies courses. These shifts in curricular content place new demands on teachers, requiring them to navigate a Christocentric, apologetic curriculum that emphasizes advanced, detailed theological and doctrinal content. The study also revealed that theFrameworkhas prompted some teachers to utilize more teacher-centered methodologies and more traditional assessment strategies and to curtail their use of certain pre-Frameworkactivities and projects that they had found to be effective. Additionally, teachers routinely supplement theFramework\u27s content, most notably its material on Scripture. The findings of this study led the researcher to conclude that the U. S. bishops lack awareness of various aspects of the present reality of U.S. Catholic secondary schools and possess only a limited ability to control the Religious Studies curriculum of such schools. Additionally, the many pedagogical challenges presented by theFramework\u27s content manifest the potential to diminish students\u27 interest in Religious Studies, particularly if a teacher possesses limited abilities to meet these challenges. These conclusions carry important implications regarding the future direction of Religious Studies in U.S. Catholic secondary schools

Breastfeeding Policies and Practices in Tennessee Hospitals

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the level of compliance to the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) in hospitals in Tennessee, to identify differences in infant feeding policies and practices based on hospital ownership type and to identify if breastfeeding disparities are related to the infant feeding policies and practices of those hospitals. Methods: Eighty hospitals/maternity centers were surveyed in Tennessee. Thirty-seven hospitals responded to a mailed survey relating to the hospital infant feeding policies and practices as defined by the WHO/UNICEF BFHI’s Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. Compliance was modeled as a function of hospital patient characteristics. Results: Compliance with the BFHI criteria varied greatly for each of the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. The lowest compliance was found for Step 10, which encourages fostering of external breastfeeding resources such as breastfeeding support groups. Step 7, which supports rooming-in for the mother and infant, was not well supported. The greatest compliance was found for Step 8, which encourages mothers to breastfeed on demand. When predicting compliance based on hospital patient population characteristics, maternal education and marital status were the strongest predictors for poor compliance to Step 5, which encourages hospital staff to train mothers on how to maintain lactation. Conclusions: Overall, compliance for the Ten Steps for Successful Breastfeeding in Tennessee hospital was poor. Further investigation is needed to determine how hospitals can improve the promotion of breastfeeding in the first days of life, especially among high-risk mothers