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The article considers methodological and practical issues of assessing the effects of measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the context of development and implementation of a strategy of Russia's socio-economic development. The authors substantiate the relevance of investments in decarbonization measures, as well as the associated benefits (demand for the products of fund-creating industries) and costs (price increases and negative consumer reaction). The target scenario of low greenhouse gas emissions socio-economic development of Russia is based on a predictive and analytical toolkit based on the input/output method and on the database of the National Inventory of Anthropogenic Emissions. The target scenario combines an active economic policy with ambitious actions towards reducing net emissions: within the scenario, the average annual growth rate of Russia's GDP is 2.6% and carbon neutrality is achieved by 2060. A more aggressive scenario of ensuring carbon neutrality by 2050 is characterized by significantly worse indicators of economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document describes the design and implementation sequence of hardware and firmware components of two microcontroller boards of 8-bit and 32-bit architectures, which use similar form factors and share common input/output devices and recently developed Web-based user interfaces. These developments are the result of over two decades of experimentation in educational and research measurement systems in renewable energy projects. The boards are intended to fill a gap between low-cost hobby systems and high-end research loggers, especially where international standards require control of uncertainties, as is the case with small wind turbine power curve assessments. The focus was to increase reliability in the hardware aspects and make software development easier by including user-friendly firmware and a set of in-house C language coding rules for new developments and refactoring of legacy code. Testing of the low-level driver sections and the use of automated tools such as Ceedling for higher-level module testing are also described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In comparison with the important number of studies devoted to metaphor comprehension by L2 speakers, scant attention has been paid to metaphor production, which would also require an account of where to find support for metaphor use. This paper explores the role that topic-based input may play in written learner discourse after exposure to metaphor-mediated instruction. MIPVU (Steen et al.), a well-known method to identify metaphor, was applied to one textbook unit as well as to essays on the same topic produced by L2 learners of English (N = 22) preparing for B2 level. The analysis revealed a remarkably high density of open-class metaphors ranging from 17.9% to 19.8% across both input and output texts. Furthermore, some similarities between input and output were found regarding not only metaphor density but also types (open- vs. closed-class metaphors) and distribution by word class. These findings suggest preliminary insights into how topic similarity may provide some support for metaphor use in metaphor-mediated instruction.

In production theory, industrial units do business in such a way that they use minimum amount of resources to produce maximum amount of products. So, inefficient units decrease their inputs level and increase their outputs level to meet the efficient frontier. By changing inputs and outputs, achieving an optimal scale size (OSS) in industrial units is one of the most important attempts and has attracted considerable attention among researchers. In this paper, an optimal scale size in input–output allocative DEA model is defined to each production firm in which the costs of inputs and the revenues of outputs are considered. We first rearrange the average-revenue efficiency measure that combines scale and output allocative efficiencies. Next, we simultaneously consider both of inputs and outputs in a new average-cost/revenue efficiency measure (ACRE). It has been shown that the proposed ACRE measure is the ratio of the profitability efficiency to ray average productivity. A numerical heuristic procedure is proposed to calculate a relatively good approximation of the new OSS in a convex and continuous technology set. To illustrate the real applicability of the proposed approach, we use a real case on 39 electricity distribution companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regardless of the technology, the tristate logic is a crucial concept which facilitate bidirectional shared media access as an essential requirement for development of large-scale systems. Moreover, the tristate circuits significantly contribute to some advanced design topics such as wired logic and construction of basic components. Lack of a straightforward realization for the tristate logic is still a challenge in efficient development of some advanced topics such as shared media, and memory and I/O access mechanism in Quantum-dot Cellular Automata, as a tentative replacement candidate of the digital technology. A two-input tristate voter named as Z-Voter is introduced in this paper whose output is equal to both inputs in case of identical inputs. In case of different inputs, however, it does not enforce a strict '0' or '1' value on its output which resembles a high-impedance state. To demonstrate the Z-Voter correct functionality and applicability, it is utilized to propose a novel stand-alone efficient tristate buffer. Its main advantage with respect to other previous rivals is that it operates just similar to other conventional Quantum-dot Cellular Automata gates and does not rely on a special clocking mechanism. This simplifies its utilization for implementing larger systems. To demonstrate its correct operation as well as simple utilization, the introduced tristate buffer is exploited to implement a simple yet scalable shared media access control scheme. The simulation results of the proposed scheme with two and three simultaneously connected drivers are presented in the paper to demonstrate its scalability. The proposed Z-Voter and tristate buffer are very compact and composed of 4 and 29 cells, respectively. Convenient kink energy proofs, as well as QCADesigner-E tool simulation results, prove the correct functionality and applicability of the proposed gates and circuits. The power analysis results of the circuits are also extracted using QCAPro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a beneficial mathematical programming method to measure relative efficiencies. In conventional DEA models, Decision Making Units (DMUs) are usually considered as black boxes. Also, the efficiency of DMUs is evaluated in the presence of the specified inputs and outputs. Nevertheless, in real-world applications, there are situations in which the performance of multi-stage processes like supply chains with forward and reverse ows must be measured such that some of the intervening factors, called proportional dual-role factors, are presented that one part of each proportional dual-role factor plays the input role and the other plays the output role. To address this issue, the current study proposes radial and non-radial DEA models for evaluating the overall and stage efficiencies of the closed-loop supply chains when there are proportional dual-role factors. To illustrate, a proportional dualrole factor is divided into portions of the input of the first stage and the output of the second stage such that the optimal overall and stage efficiency scores of closed-loop supply chain are obtained. A case study is used to illustrate the proposed approach. The experimental results obtained from real world data show the convincing performance of our proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallel independent disks can enhance the performance of external memory (EM) algorithms, but the programming task is often difficult. Each disk can service only one read or write request at a time; the challenge is to keep the disks as busy as possible. In this article, we develop a randomized allocation discipline for parallel independent disks, called randomized cycling. We show how it can be used as the basis for an efficient distribution sort algorithm, which we call randomized cycling distribution sort (RCD). We prove that the expected I/O complexity of RCD is optimal. The analysis uses a novel reduction to a scenario with significantly fewer probabilistic interdependencies. We demonstrate RCD's practicality by experimental simulations. Using the randomized cycling discipline, algorithms developed for the unrealistic multihead disk model can be simulated on the realistic parallel disk model for the class of multipass algorithms, which make a complete pass through their data before accessing any element a second time. In particular, algorithms based upon the well-known distribution and merge paradigms of EM computation can be optimally extended from a single disk to parallel disks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to deal with undesirable products in models of performance analysis, we need to replace the assumption of free disposability by weak disposability and this assumption has been used to model undesirable products as outputs. The traditional axiom of weak disposability of Shephard (1970) is given in a multiplier form and, in this sense, the level of bad outputs is equal to zero if and only if the level of the desirable outputs is equal to zero. An alternative definition of the weak disposability of outputs in additive form has been proposed. An axiomatic foundation has been introduced to construct a new production technology space in the presence of undesirable outputs. The model is illustrated using real data from 92 coal fired power plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed data transfer is vital to data-intensive computing that often requires moving large data volumes efficiently within a local data center and among geographically dispersed facilities. Effective utilization of the abundant resources in modern multicore environments for data transfer remains a persistent challenge, particularly, for Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) systems wherein the locality of data accessing is an important factor. This requires rethinking how to exploit parallel access to data and to optimize the storage and network I/Os. We address this challenge and present a novel design of asynchronous processing and resource-aware task scheduling in the context of high-throughput data replication. Our software allocates multiple sets of threads to different stages of the processing pipeline, including storage I/O and network communication, based on their capacities. Threads belonging to each stage follow an asynchronous model, and attain high performance via multiple locality-aware and peer-aware mechanisms, such as task grouping, buffer sharing, affinity control and communication protocols. Our design also integrates high performance features to enhance the scalability of data transfer in several scenarios, e.g., file-level sorting, block-level asynchrony, and thread-level pipelining. Our experiments confirm the advantages of our software under different types of workloads and dynamic environments with contention for shared resources, including a 28-160 percent increase in bandwidth for transferring large files, 1.7-66 times speed-up for small files, and up to 108 percent larger throughput for mixed workloads compared with three state of the art alternatives, GridFTP , BBCP and Aspera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most distributed applications and tools used in wide area networks and Cloud computing environments use the UNIX I/O framework. In this framework, processes use file descriptors for standard I/O and file access, with the traditional open/ close/ read/ write interface. Although this design has proven to be excellent since the 1970s, it is not appropriate for today wide-area systems because of the implied RPCs and network latency. There are systems relying on message streams that perform well in such environments, but they depart from the toolbox approach embraced by UNIX, making it harder to combine existing programs to solve new tasks. In this paper we describe the design, implementation, and usage of a new I/O framework, built to enable the construction of services in environments with high latency, while preserving the programmability of the system as a whole and making it convenient to combine existing tools and programs. The framework relies on named channels for I/O. Each channel carries a stream of typed data including directory entries, raw bytes, and other application-specific data. Separate commands using the framework may be combined as in UNIX, but still tolerate high latencies as found in distributed and Cloud computing environments, enabling a toolbox approach in such environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new research issue in the context of production theory is production without explicit inputs. In such systems, input consumption is not important to the decision-maker and the focus is on output production. In the presence of desirable and undesirable outputs, modelling undesirable outputs is an important problem. This paper discusses the problem of weak disposability in the absence of explicit inputs. A linear production technology is constructed axiomatically to handle desirable and undesirable outputs in production systems without explicit inputs. A simple linear formulation of weak disposability in such systems is proposed that enables us to reduce undesirable production outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Input of many states from multiple mechanical contacts to an Embedded System, as well as outputs to many leds, pose a challenge for the design of an embedded system due to the small number of Input/Output (I/O) pins that most Microcontrollers have. On the other hand, although it is quite simple to debounce a single mechanical contact, the problem becomes more complex in the case of multiple contacts, which usually have different bouncing times. There are many known I/O methods that deal with multiple contacts. This work aims to explain and analyse them in an integrated manner. It also proposes a different way, which provides the possibility of connecting many inputs and outputs, with only three ports. Two methods to debounce multiple mechanical contacts are discussed. Finally, an innovative modular way of cabling many contacts along a house, or enterprise, is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] The aim was to explore interrelationship between agricultural input and output in Jiangsu and the influence degrees of input factors on agricultural output. [Method] Quantitative analysis and evaluation were made on agricultural input and output in Jiangsu during 1990-2012 as per factor analysis and regression analysis. [Result] The result of factor analysis showed that since the 1990s, the comprehensive efficiency of agricultural input/output in Jiangsu was growing and input/output of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, crop farming, and of food production were extracted, whose scores reflect the changes of input/output efficiencies in terms of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, crop farming and food production in the two decades. The results of regression analysis indicated that the effects of the three indices on agricultural output tended to be volatile and the influence degrees were concluded also by regression parameters. [Conclusion] The research provides theoretical references for agricultural input/output structure in Jiangsu Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining the balance between socio-economical and bio-physical aspects in order to promote sustainable development in agriculture is a fundamental challenge for researchers. The aim of this study is to assist in constructing a science of sustainability in agriculture and to assess sustainability in various types of agroecosystem managements characterized by different agricultural and rural developments. This study evaluates sustainability on Terceira Island (Portugal) and in the Province of Viterbo (Italy) by using selected agroecosystem sustainability indicators capable of achieving an energetic and monetary input/output analysis. Overall, results showed two rural and agricultural realities that outline two different responses to world market demand, which are partly due to specific rural histories. In terms of energy supply, Terceira and Viterbo dairy farms use the same amount of input but in monetary terms the level of input is more than double in Viterbo (€1651 ha−1 versus €616 ha−1) which is due to the lower cost of direct energy (e.g., fuel) on the island. The use of direct energy input (fuel, electricity and lubricants) on the farms in Viterbo decreases in mixed farm systems and is at its minimum on dairy farms. On the other hand, the use of indirect energy input (fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, seeds and feedstuffs) is greater on Terceira farms compared with those in Viterbo (0.76 versus 0.60, respectively). Generally speaking, the crops grown on Terceira are not diversified and this has caused environmental issues on the island due to the milk production that is mainly exported. In Europe, more intellectual and financial resources for measuring and monitoring sustainability conditions in agriculture are necessary, in order to appropriately inform decision makers at both institutional and individual level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault tolerance is actually an essential issue in cloud computing to face failures and minimize their damages. The checkpointing is a powerful fault tolerance technique that consists of saving the transient state of a computation system on a persistent storage from which the execution state can be restarted in case of failure. The coordinated checkpointing is an efficient checkpointing strategy because it is domino effect-free and it needs only the last stored checkpoint to ensure a consistent state. In this paper we propose a lightweight coordinated checkpointing for cloud computing that minimizes the overload of classical coordinated checkpointing by minimizing the number of the participating virtual machines (VMs) in each checkpointing interval. The experimental results prove that our proposal reduces the overload and improves the system performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous brain structures have a cerebellum-like architecture in which inputs diverge onto a large number of granule cells that converge onto principal cells. Plasticity at granule cell-to-principal cell synapses is thought to allow these structures to associate spatially distributed patterns of granule cell activity with appropriate principal cell responses. Storing large sets of associations requires the patterns involved to be normalized, i.e., to have similar total amounts of granule cell activity. Using a general model of associative learning, we describe two ways in which granule cells can be configured to promote normalization. First, we show how heterogeneity in firing thresholds across granule cells can restrict pattern-to-pattern variation in total activity while also limiting spatial overlap between patterns. These effects combine to allow fast and flexible learning. Second, we show that the perceptron learning rule selectively silences those synapses that contribute most to pattern-to-pattern variation in the total input to a principal cell. This provides a simple functional interpretation for the experimental observation that many granule cell-to-Purkinje cell synapses in the cerebellum are silent. Since our model is quite general, these principles may apply to a wide range of associative circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [·] In some real applications, the status of some measures is not clearly known. [·] These measures are referred to as flexible measures. [·] This paper proposes a flexible SBM of efficiency in presence of flexible measures. [·] Two real cases show applicability of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Input/Output (I/O) operations can represent a significant proportion of the run-time of parallel scientific computing applications. Although there have been several advances in file format libraries, file system design and I/O hardware, a growing divergence exists between the performance of parallel file systems and the compute clusters that they support. In this paper, we document the design and application of the RIOT I/O toolkit (RIOT) being developed at the University of Warwick with our industrial partners at the Atomic Weapons Establishment and Sandia National Laboratories. We use the toolkit to assess the performance of three industry-standard I/O benchmarks on three contrasting supercomputers, ranging from a mid-sized commodity cluster to a large-scale proprietary IBM BlueGene/P system. RIOT provides a powerful framework in which to analyse I/O and parallel file system behaviour—we demonstrate, for example, the large file locking overhead of IBM's General Parallel File System, which can consume nearly 30% of the total write time in the FLASH-IO benchmark. Through I/O trace analysis, we also assess the performance of HDF-5 in its default configuration, identifying a bottleneck created by the use of suboptimal Message Passing Interface hints. Furthermore, we investigate the performance gains attributed to the Parallel Log-structured File System (PLFS) being developed by EMC Corporation and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Our evaluation of PLFS involves two high-performance computing systems with contrasting I/O backplanes and illustrates the varied improvements to I/O that result from the deployment of PLFS (ranging from up to 25× speed-up in I/O performance on a large I/O installation to 2× speed-up on the much smaller installation at the University of Warwick). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Real-time embedded systems are increasingly being built using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components such as mass-produced peripherals and buses to reduce costs, time-to-market, and increase performance. Unfortunately, COTS-interconnect systems do not usually guarantee timeliness, and might experience severe timing degradation in the presence of high-bandwidth I/O peripherals. Moreover, peripherals do not implement any internal priority-based scheduling mechanism, hence, sharing a device can result in data of high priority tasks being delayed by data of low priority tasks. To address these problems, we designed a real-time I/O management system comprised of 1) real-time bridges with I/O virtualization capabilities, and 2) a peripheral scheduler. The proposed framework is used to transparently put the I/O subsystem of a COTS-based embedded system under the discipline of real-time scheduling, minimizing the timing unpredictability due to the peripherals sharing the bus. We also discuss computing the maximum delay due to buffered I/O data transactions as well as determining the buffer size needed to avoid data loss. Finally, we demonstrate experimentally that our prototype real-time I/O management system successfully exports multiple virtual devices for a single physical device and prioritizes I/O traffic, guaranteeing its timeliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A special and important network structured linear programming problem is the shortest path problem. Classical shortest path problems assume that there are unit of shipping cost or profit along an arc. In many real occasions, various attributes (various costs and profits) are usually considered in a shortest path problem. Because of the frequent occurrence of such network structured problems, there is a need to develop an efficient procedure for handling these problems. This paper studies the shortest path problem in the case that multiple attributes are considered along the arcs. The concept of relative efficiency is defined for each path from initial node to final node. Then, an efficient path with the maximum efficiency is determined. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) assists decision makers in distinguishing between efficient and inefficient decision making units (DMUs) in a homogeneous group. Standard DEA models can not provide more information about efficient units. Super-efficiency DEA models can be used in ranking the performance of efficient DMUs and overcome this obstacle. Because of the possible infeasibility, the use of super efficiency models has been restricted. This research proposes a methodology to determine a distance-based measure of super-efficiency. The proposed methodology overcomes the infeasibility problem of the existing ranking methodologies. The applicability of the proposed model is illustrated in the context of the analysis of gas companies' performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The off-state degradation of n-channel laterally diffused metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) silicon-controlled-rectifier electrostatic-discharge (ESD) devices for high-voltage applications in standard low-voltage complementary MOS technology is studied. Based on experimental data and technology computer-aided design simulations, impact ionization induced by conduction-band electrons tunneling from an \n^+ poly-Si gate to an n-well is identified to be the driving force of device degradation. Device optimization is proposed, which improves both off-state and ESD reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A model order reduction method is proposed for approximating nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). The method attempts to combine the desirable attributes of Krylov reduction and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and is entitled Krylov enhanced POD (KPOD). The method approximates nonlinear input/output (I/O) behavior using a sequence of state dependent Krylov subspaces which are obtained via simulation of a nonlinear finite element discretized system. POD is then implemented to extract, from the sequence of subspaces, a projection basis that describes the state dependent variance of the Krylov subspaces. Due to Krylov’s moment matching property, the variance describes how the I/O of a sequence of Krylov reduced models would vary as the original model’s state varies. Galerkin projection is performed using the extracted basis to yield a low dimensional I/O approximation of the original nonlinear model. Reduced order models of an electro-thermal switch generated using the conventional POD and KPOD are presented and used to compare the I/O approximation capabilities of each method. Our results indicate that KPOD reduced models are capable of accurately modeling I/O using a sequence of Krylov subspaces generated from a single nonlinear discretized model simulation while POD can require multiple nonlinear discretized model simulations to generate a reduced model with similar I/O accuracy. The proposed method can be a potential asset for practical applications in the area of I/O behavior prediction and design optimization of nonlinear systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the real estate development and community interaction aspects of US shopping malls. The existing research on shopping mall development and redevelopment can more comprehensively address the importance of malls to the communities in which they are located. Existing shopping mall research focuses on lease valuation, tenant location, retail agglomeration economies, retail demand externalities and intangible asset value. Largely, neglected areas of research are the community and economic contributions of shopping malls. These are critical issues given the age of shopping malls worldwide, the need for adjacent area redevelopment and requirement of large public subsidies for infrastructure construction. Design/methodology/approach – This paper investigates the critical role of shopping malls as town centres and catalysts for area development and redevelopment. A review of the existing research on shopping malls and retail economic contributions to communities is addressed along with how mall redevelopment can be a catalyst for the revitalization of urban core and suburban areas. Methodology on the measurement of shopping centre economic and employment impacts using input/output (IO) modelling is reviewed and analysed. Findings – IO modelling is an effective tool to evaluate publically supported infrastructure to accompany shopping mall and retail redevelopment. As an example of an IO analysis of construction and mall operations economic impacts, the paper presents a case study of the proposed $2 billion Mall of America (Bloomington, Minnesota) expansion employing IO modelling. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates the community benefits and economic justification for public support for mall revitalization and provides a reliable analytical tool for quantifying the benefits of mall redevelopment to the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of capturing the noise amplifier dynamics of a boundary layer on a flat plate subjected to an adverse pressure gradient by means of a global modes strategy is numerically investigated. After a brief description of the mechanism regarding the exact optimal perturbation fields, the system is rewritten into an input-output framework. In order to achieve this, the input and output are derived from a direct-optimal growth computation through the perturbation fields at times t = 0 and t = t where the wave packet reaches a maximum energy growth. By expanding the flow disturbance variables as a summation of global modes, their observability, controllability, and truncation error are assessed. It is shown that the truncation error decreases by taking into account highly temporally damped global modes. Therefore, we propose the ability of a reduced-order model based on global modes to capture the full dynamics of the stable subspace, under the consideration of a large number of modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the surface band-to-band tunnelling (BTBT) current under the off-state condition in drain-extended MOS (DeMOS) devices. We found significant gate-induced drain leakage current due to surface BTBT, which was also reported earlier as the dominant cause of early time-dependent dielectric breakdown and device failure. Furthermore, a layout solution for the existing DeMOS device is proposed in order to mitigate the surface BTBT current and the associated gate oxide reliability issues, without sacrificing the mixed-signal performance of the device. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the optimization issues of various drain-extended devices are discussed for input/output applications. Themixed-signal performance, impact of process variations, and gate oxide reliability of these devices are compared. Lightly doped drain MOS (LDDMOS) was found to have a moderate performance advantage as compared to shallow trench isolation (STI) and non-STI drain-extended MOS (DeMOS) devices. Non-STI DeMOS devices have improved circuit performance but suffer from the worst gate oxide reliability. Incorporating an STI region underneath the gate-drain overlap improves the gate oxide reliability, although it degrades the mixed-signal characteristics of the device. The single-halo nature of DeMOS devices has been shown to be effective in suppressing the short-channel effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, computers are frequently equipped with peripherals that transfer great amounts of data between them and the system memory using direct memory access techniques (i.e., digital cameras, high speed networks, ...). Those peripherals prevent the processor from accessing system memory for significant periods of time (i.e., while they are communicating with system memory in order to send or receive data blocks). In this paper we study the negative effects that I/O operations from computer peripherals have on processor performance. With the help of a set of routines (SMPL) used to make discrete event simulators, we have developed a configurable software that simulates a computer processor and main memory as well as the I/O scenarios where the peripherals operate. This software has been used to analyze the performance of four different processors in four I/O scenarios: video capture, video capture and playback, high speed network, and serial transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective:: Tinnitus is one of the most common and distressing otological symptoms. Although numerous therapeutic modalities have been tried, there is no consensus regarding effective therapeutic agents up to now. The effects of lidocaine on tinnitus have been reported in literature using either subjective or audiologic tests. Nevertheless, the otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) have not been utilized to demonstrate lidocaine’s effect on the cochlea in the English literature. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of lidocaine on tinnitus by considering the alterations with tinnitus, it induces on OAEs and subjective symptoms. Methods:: This study was performed in 30 patients with tinnitus. Twenty-eight of the patients had normal hearing and two of them evidenced mild sensorineural hearing loss. To determine the severity of tinnitus, the patients were required to fill out a tinnitus scoring scale before lidocaine infusion on the same day. Then, lidocaine was administered intravenously to each patient at a dose of 1.5 mg/kg body weight over a period of 30 min. Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs) and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) were measured three times; namely before lidocaine injection, at 25 min after injection and on the next day. The severity of tinnitus was scored again 1 d, 1 wk and 1 mo after lidocaine administration. Results:: Immediately after infusion, four patients (13.3%) declared total suppression of tinnitus, whereas three patients (10%) reported only partial relief in tinnitus subjectively. The patients, who had a subjective improved response (group 1) were compared with the patients, who had no response (group 2). Statistically significant changes (p<0.05) in DPOAE response/growth or input/output (I/O) functions were observed at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 kHz frequencies in lidocaine responders and at 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 kHz frequencies in no responders at different primary stimulus levels. Statistically significant changes (p<0.05) were seen at 2 kHz for 53 dB and at 3 kHz for 62 dB SPL primaries in both groups. When the significant results of these two groups were compared with each other, differences were found insignificant. Conclusion:: Systematic OAE measurements revealed that no changes occurred in SOAE and DPOAE levels in that alterations disappeared the next day. Subjective relief from tinnitus was stated in some of the patients and lasted for 4 wk at longest. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Inadequate &fracIO; performance remains a major challenge in using high-end computing systems effectively. To address this problem, the paper presents TsModeler, an automatic time series modeling and prediction framework for adaptive &fracIO; prefetching that uses ARIMA time series models to predict the temporal patterns of &fracIO; requests. These online pattern analysis techniques and cutoff indicators for autocorrelation patterns enable multistep online predictions suitable for multiblock prefetching. This work also combines time series predictions with spatial Markov model predictions to determine when, what, and how many blocks to prefetch. Experimental results show reductions in execution time compared to the standard Linux file system across various hardware configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The full capacity of contemporary parallel computers can, in the context of iterative ab initio procedures like, for example, self-consistent field (SCF) and multiconfigurational SCF, only be utilized if the disk and input/output (I/O) capacity are fully exploited before the implementation turns to an integral direct strategy. In a recent report on parallel semidirect SCF http://www.tc.cornell.edu/er/media/1996/collabrate.html, http://www.fp.mcs.anl.gd/grand-challenges/chem/nondirect/index.html it was demonstrated that super-linear speedups are achievable for algorithms that exploit scalable parallel I/O. In the I/O-intensive SCF iterations of this implementation a static load balancing, however, was employed, dictated by the initial iteration in which integral evaluation dominates the central processing unit activity and thus determines the load balancing. In the present paper we present the first implementation in which load balancing is achieved throughout the whole SCF procedure, i.e. also in subsequent iterations. The improved scalability of our new algorithm is demonstrated in some test calculations, for example, for 63-node calculation a speedup of 104 was observed in the computation of the two-electron integral contribution to the Fock matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a tutorial and expository approach, this paper assesses the performance of some simple, idealized input, output, and compute overlap configurations. Equations are given for one- and two-channel configurations that have one, two, and three partitions of main storage. The objectives of the paper are to gain insight into bounds on system throughput performance and to give equations useful for checking computer simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]