Birthday, Revisited.

In this paper, the philosophical concept of birth will be discussed from an uncommon point of view presented by M. A. Taheri

Christmas, A Mirror.

Christmas, A Mirror. It is important what is the concept behind our actions. It is important how we are looking at our roles as human beings, and where and to what extent we are seeking that. Besides, after finding our roles, we need to know that this is only the beginning of a long path of bringing that concept into practice

Dynamic Management of Multi-Core Processor Resources to Improve Energy Efficiency under Quality-of-Service Constraints

With the current technology trends, the number of computers and computation demand is increasing dramatically. In addition to different economic and environmental costs at a large scale, the operational time of battery-powered devices is dependent on how efficiently the computer processors consume energy. Computer processors generally consist of several processing cores and a hierarchy of cache memory that includes both private and shared cache capacity among the cores. A resource management algorithm can adjust the configuration of different core and cache resources at regular intervals during run-time, according to the dynamic characteristics of the workload. A typical resource management policy is to maximize performance, in terms of processing speed or throughput, without exceeding the power and thermal limits. However, this can lead to excessive energy expenditure since a higher performance does not necessarily increase the value of the outcome. For example, increasing the frame-rate of multi-media applications beyond a certain target will not improve user experience considerably. Therefore, applications should be associated with Quality-of-Service (QoS) targets. This way, the resource manager can search for configurations with minimum energy that does not violate the performance constraints of any application. To achieve this goal, we propose several resource management schemes as well as hardware and software techniques for performance and energy modeling, in three papers that constitute this thesis. In the first paper, we demonstrate that, in many cases, independent management of resources such as per-core dynamic voltage-frequency scaling (DVFS) and cache partitioning fails to save a considerable energy without causing any performance degradation. Therefore, we present a coordinated resource management algorithm that saves considerable energy by exploring different combinations of resource allocations to all applications, at regular intervals during run-time. This scheme is based on simplified analytical performance and energy models and a multi-level reduction technique for reducing the dimensions of the multi-core configuration space. In the second paper, we extend the coordinated resource management with dynamic adaptation of the core micro-architectural resources. This way, we include instruction- and memory-level parallelism, ILP and MLP, resp., in the resource trade-offs together with per-core DVFS and cache partitioning. This provides a powerful means to further improve energy savings. Additionally, to enable this scheme, we propose a hardware technique that improves the accuracy of performance and energy prediction for different core sizes and cache partitionings. Finally, in the third paper, we demonstrate that substantial improvements in energy savings are possible by allowing short-term deviations from the baseline performance target. We measure these deviations by introducing a parameter called slack. Based on this, we present Cooperative Slack Management (CSM) that finds opportunities to generate slack at low energy cost and utilize it later to save more energy in the same or even other processor cores. This way, we also ensure that the performance consistently remains ahead of the baseline target in every core

Local and systemic effects of endotoxin mastitis on the chemiluminescence of milk and blood neutrophils in dairy cows.

The local and systemic effects of intramammary lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injection on the chemiluminescence (CL) of milk and blood polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) were investigated in six healthy early lactation cows. Clinical signs of acute mastitis such as fever, increased heart rate and a decreased milk production were observed in all cows. Before LPS challenge, the CL activity of milk PMN was significantly lower than that of blood PMN (P < 0.01). A significant negative correlation was found between pre-challenge milk and blood PMN CL and, the decreased milk production in unchallenged quarters. The CL activity of milk PMN from LPS-injected quarters increased following LPS challenge, whereas it remained unchanged in control quarters. The CL activity of blood PMN showed a biphasic increase, with two peaks and a valley below pre-challenge CL activity (P < 0.01). At post-challenge hours (PCH) 6 and 12, the CL activity of milk PMN from LPS-injected quarters exceeded that of blood PMN (P < 0.05 and P < 0.001, respectively). The decreased CL activity of blood PMN and the enhanced CL activity of milk PMN during endotoxin-induced mastitis was reflected by changes in the shape of the CL curve. In blood PMN, a decrease of the second peak of the CL curve suggests that the myeloperoxidase (MPO)-H2O2 system is impaired during endotoxin-induced mastitis. In contrast, the MPO-H2O2 system was enhanced in milk PMN from challenged quarters. The highest duration and intensity of reactive oxygen intermediate (ROI) production was observed in milk PMN from LPS-injected quarters at PCH 12. The increased viability of PMN in LPS-injected quarters and to a lesser extent in control quarters suggests possible effects of both facilitated diapedesis and inflammatory mediators on milk PMN survival. In conclusion, our results suggest that a combination of local and systemic action of E. coli endotoxin is involved in the priming of milk PMN during mastitis

Role Of Religious Nationalism In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Konflik terhadap Palestin amat terkesan, terutamanya terhadap ideologi, agama, dan bahagian negara yang telah dibina berdekad lamanya. Tesis ini menganalisis dari segi konteks sejarah, idelogi, dan struktur kuasa yang berkaitan di antara Yahudi Israel dan Palestin Arab sepanjang abad kedua puluh. The conflict over Palestine is deeply rooted in ideological, religious, and national divisions which is built up for decades. This thesis analyzed the historical context, ideology, and structures of power that animated relations between Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians during the twentieth century

The Plight of Threatened Afghan and Iranian Scholars and Students

In the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan religious ideas and laws seek to control all spheres of private and public life and state-sponsored restrictions hinder access to education and academic freedom for numerous citizens. The prevailing sedimented culture in both countries has resulted in the dismissal of many experienced scholarly personnel and an ensuing “brain drain.” This research project has cataloged some of the conditions that have impinge upon scholarly inquiry in Iran and Afghanistan and have led many scholars to leave their countries of birth. Based on an extensive literature review and personal interviews conducted, the report explores various aspects of the ecosystem that some displaced Iranian and Afghan scholars find themselves in