Enforcing service level agreements using an economically enhanced resource manager

Traditional resource management has had as its main objective the optimisation of throughput, based on parameters such as CPU, memory, and network bandwidth. With the appearance of Grid Markets, new variables that determine economic expenditure, benefit and opportunity must be taken into account. The SORMA project aims to allow resource owners and consumers to exploit market mechanisms to sell and buy resources across the Grid. SORMA’s motivation is to achieve efficient resource utilisation by maximising revenue for resource providers, and minimising the cost of resource consumption within a market environment. An overriding factor in Grid markets is the need to ensure that desired Quality of Service levels meet the expectations of market participants. This paper explains the proposed use of an Economically Enhanced Resource Manager (EERM) for resource provisioning based on economic models. In particular, this paper describes techniques used by the EERM to support revenue maximisation across multiple Service Level Agreements.

Enforcing service level agreements using an economically enhanced resource manager

Traditional resource management has had as its main objective the optimisation of throughput, based on pa- rameters such as CPU, memory, and network bandwidth. With the appearance of Grid Markets, new variables that determine economic expenditure, benefit and opportunity must be taken into account. The SORMA project aims to allow resource owners and consumers to exploit market mechanisms to sell and buy resources across the Grid. SORMA’s motivation is to achieve efficient resource utilisation by maximising revenue for resource providers, and minimising the cost of resource consumption within a market environment. An overriding factor in Grid markets is the need to ensure that desired Quality of Service levels meet the expectations of market participants. This paper explains the proposed use of an Economically Enhanced Resource Manager (EERM) for resource provisioning based on economic models. In particular, this paper describes techniques used by the EERM to support revenue maximisation across multiple Service Level Agreements.

The assessment of benchmarks executed on bare-metal and using para-virtualization

A full assessment of para-­virtualization is important, because without knowledge about the various overheads, users can not understand whether using virtualization is a good idea or not. In this paper we are very interested in assessing the overheads of running various benchmarks on bare-­‐metal, as well as on para-­‐virtualization. The idea is to see what the overheads of para-­‐ virtualization are, as well as looking at the overheads of turning on monitoring and logging. The knowledge from assessing various benchmarks on these different systems will help a range of users understand the use of virtualization systems. In this paper we assess the overheads of using Xen, VMware, KVM and Citrix, see Table 1. These different virtualization systems are used extensively by cloud-­‐users. We are using various Netlib1 benchmarks, which have been developed by the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). In order to assess these virtualization systems, we run the benchmarks on bare-­‐metal, then on the para-­‐virtualization, and finally we turn on monitoring and logging. The later is important as users are interested in Service Level Agreements (SLAs) used by the Cloud providers, and the use of logging is a means of assessing the services bought and used from commercial providers. In this paper we assess the virtualization systems on three different systems. We use the Thamesblue supercomputer, the Hactar cluster and IBM JS20 blade server (see Table 2), which are all servers available at the University of Reading. A functional virtualization system is multi-­‐layered and is driven by the privileged components. Virtualization systems can host multiple guest operating systems, which run on its own domain, and the system schedules virtual CPUs and memory within each Virtual Machines (VM) to make the best use of the available resources. The guest-­‐operating system schedules each application accordingly. You can deploy virtualization as full virtualization or para-­‐virtualization. Full virtualization provides a total abstraction of the underlying physical system and creates a new virtual system, where the guest operating systems can run. No modifications are needed in the guest OS or application, e.g. the guest OS or application is not aware of the virtualized environment and runs normally. Para-­‐virualization requires user modification of the guest operating systems, which runs on the virtual machines, e.g. these guest operating systems are aware that they are running on a virtual machine, and provide near-­‐native performance. You can deploy both para-­‐virtualization and full virtualization across various virtualized systems. Para-­‐virtualization is an OS-­‐assisted virtualization; where some modifications are made in the guest operating system to enable better performance. In this kind of virtualization, the guest operating system is aware of the fact that it is running on the virtualized hardware and not on the bare hardware. In para-­‐virtualization, the device drivers in the guest operating system coordinate the device drivers of host operating system and reduce the performance overheads. The use of para-­‐virtualization [0] is intended to avoid the bottleneck associated with slow hardware interrupts that exist when full virtualization is employed. It has revealed [0] that para-­‐ virtualization does not impose significant performance overhead in high performance computing, and this in turn this has implications for the use of cloud computing for hosting HPC applications. The “apparent” improvement in virtualization has led us to formulate the hypothesis that certain classes of HPC applications should be able to execute in a cloud environment, with minimal performance degradation. In order to support this hypothesis, first it is necessary to define exactly what is meant by a “class” of application, and secondly it will be necessary to observe application performance, both within a virtual machine and when executing on bare hardware. A further potential complication is associated with the need for Cloud service providers to support Service Level Agreements (SLA), so that system utilisation can be audited.

Maximizing revenue in Grid markets using an economically enhanced resource manager

Traditional resource management has had as its main objective the optimization of throughput, based on parameters such as CPU, memory, and network bandwidth. With the appearance of Grid markets, new variables that determine economic expenditure, benefit and opportunity must be taken into account. The Self-organizing ICT Resource Management (SORMA) project aims at allowing resource owners and consumers to exploit market mechanisms to sell and buy resources across the Grid. SORMA's motivation is to achieve efficient resource utilization by maximizing revenue for resource providers and minimizing the cost of resource consumption within a market environment. An overriding factor in Grid markets is the need to ensure that the desired quality of service levels meet the expectations of market participants. This paper explains the proposed use of an economically enhanced resource manager (EERM) for resource provisioning based on economic models. In particular, this paper describes techniques used by the EERM to support revenue maximization across multiple service level agreements and provides an application scenario to demonstrate its usefulness and effectiveness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Enhancing recovery rates: lessons from year one of IAPT

BACKGROUND: The English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative aims to make evidence-based psychological therapies for depression and anxiety disorder more widely available in the National Health Service (NHS). 32 IAPT services based on a stepped care model were established in the first year of the programme. We report on the reliable recovery rates achieved by patients treated in the services and identify predictors of recovery at patient level, service level, and as a function of compliance with National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Treatment Guidelines. METHOD: Data from 19,395 patients who were clinical cases at intake, attended at least two sessions, had at least two outcomes scores and had completed their treatment during the period were analysed. Outcome was assessed with the patient health questionnaire depression scale (PHQ-9) and the anxiety scale (GAD-7). RESULTS: Data completeness was high for a routine cohort study. Over 91% of treated patients had paired (pre-post) outcome scores. Overall, 40.3% of patients were reliably recovered at post-treatment, 63.7% showed reliable improvement and 6.6% showed reliable deterioration. Most patients received treatments that were recommended by NICE. When a treatment not recommended by NICE was provided, recovery rates were reduced. Service characteristics that predicted higher reliable recovery rates were: high average number of therapy sessions; higher step-up rates among individuals who started with low intensity treatment; larger services; and a larger proportion of experienced staff. CONCLUSIONS: Compliance with the IAPT clinical model is associated with enhanced rates of reliable recovery.

Online dietary intake estimation: The Food4Me food frequency questionnaire

Background: Dietary assessment methods are important tools for nutrition research. Online dietary assessment tools have the potential to become invaluable methods of assessing dietary intake because, compared with traditional methods, they have many advantages including the automatic storage of input data and the immediate generation of nutritional outputs. Objective: The aim of this study was to develop an online food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for dietary data collection in the “Food4Me” study and to compare this with the validated European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC) Norfolk printed FFQ. Methods: The Food4Me FFQ used in this analysis was developed to consist of 157 food items. Standardized color photographs were incorporated in the development of the Food4Me FFQ to facilitate accurate quantification of the portion size of each food item. Participants were recruited in two centers (Dublin, Ireland and Reading, United Kingdom) and each received the online Food4Me FFQ and the printed EPIC-Norfolk FFQ in random order. Participants completed the Food4Me FFQ online and, for most food items, participants were requested to choose their usual serving size among seven possibilities from a range of portion size pictures. The level of agreement between the two methods was evaluated for both nutrient and food group intakes using the Bland and Altman method and classification into quartiles of daily intake. Correlations were calculated for nutrient and food group intakes. Results: A total of 113 participants were recruited with a mean age of 30 (SD 10) years (40.7% male, 46/113; 59.3%, 67/113 female). Cross-classification into exact plus adjacent quartiles ranged from 77% to 97% at the nutrient level and 77% to 99% at the food group level. Agreement at the nutrient level was highest for alcohol (97%) and lowest for percent energy from polyunsaturated fatty acids (77%). Crude unadjusted correlations for nutrients ranged between .43 and .86. Agreement at the food group level was highest for “other fruits” (eg, apples, pears, oranges) and lowest for “cakes, pastries, and buns”. For food groups, correlations ranged between .41 and .90. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that the online Food4Me FFQ has good agreement with the validated printed EPIC-Norfolk FFQ for assessing both nutrient and food group intakes, rendering it a useful tool for ranking individuals based on nutrient and food group intakes.

Uptake of a free coronary heart disease risk screening programme in community pharmacy: the Healthy Heart Assessment service

Introduction Health promotion (HP) aims to enhance good health while preventing ill-health at three levels of activity; primary (preventative), secondary (diagnostic) and tertiary (management).1 It can range from simple provision of health education to ongoing support, but the effectiveness of HP is ultimately dependent on its ability to influence change. HP as part of the Community Pharmacy Contract (CPC) aims to increase public knowledge and target ‘hard-to-reach’ individuals by focusing mainly on primary and tertiary HP. The CPC does not include screening programmes (secondary HP) as a service. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the UK. While there is evidence to support the effectiveness of some community pharmacy HP strategies in CHD, there is paucity of research in relation to screening services.2 Against this background, Alliance Pharmacy introduced a free CHD risk screening programme to provide tailored HP advice as part of a participant–pharmacist consultation. The aim of this study is to report on the CHD risk levels of participants and to provide a qualitative indication of consultation outcomes. Methods Case records for 12 733 people who accessed a free CHD risk screening service between August 2004 and April 2006 offered at 217 community pharmacies were obtained. The service involved initial self-completion of the Healthy Heart Assessment (HHA) form and measurement of height, weight, body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol and highdensity lipoprotein levels by pharmacists to calculate CHD risk.3 Action taken by pharmacists (lifestyle advice, statin recommendation or general practitioner (GP) referral) and qualitative statements of advice were recorded, and a copy provided to the participants. The service did not include follow-up of participants. All participants consented to taking part in evaluations of the service. Ethical committee scrutiny was not required for this service development evaluation. Results Case records for 10 035 participants (3658 male) were evaluable; 5730 (57%) were at low CHD risk (<15%); 3636 (36%) at moderate-to-high CHD risk (≥15%); and 669 (7%) had existing heart disease. A significantly higher proportion of male (48% versus 30% female) participants were at moderate- to-high risk of CHD (chi-square test; P < 0.005). A range of outcomes resulted from consultations. Lifestyle advice was provided irrespective of participants’ CHD risk or existing disease. In the moderate-to-high-risk group, of which 52% received prescribed medication, lifestyle advice was recorded for 62%, 16% were referred and 34% were advised to have a re-assessment. Statin recommendations were made in 1% of all cases. There was evidence of supportive and motivational statements in the advice recorded. Discussion Pharmacists were able to identify individuals’ level of CHD risk and provide them with bespoke advice. Identification of at-risk participants did not automatically result in referrals or statin recommendation. One-third of those accessing the screening service had moderate-to-high risk of CHD, a significantly higher proportion of whom were men. It is not known whether these individuals had been previously exposed to HP but presumably by accessing this service they may have contemplated change. As effectiveness of HP advice will depend among other factors on ability to influence change, future consultations may need to explore patients’ attitude towards change in relation to the Trans Theoretical Model4 to better tailor HP advice. The high uptake of the service by those at moderate-to-high CHD risk indicates a need for this type of screening programme in community pharmacy, perhaps specifically to reach men who access medical services less.

The relationships of age and length of service with job satisfaction: an examination of hotel employees in Thailand

Earlier studies suggest age is positively associated with job satisfaction, while others use length of service, or tenure, as a predictor of job satisfaction levels. This article examines whether age and tenure are individual determinants of satisfaction, or whether there is an interaction between the two. The results indicate that employee age is not significantly associated with overall job satisfaction level, but that tenure is. There is also significant relationship between tenure and facets of satisfaction (job, pay and fringe benefits), but the effect of tenure on satisfaction is significantly modified by age.

Understanding construction consortia: Theory, practice and opinions

Firms form consortia in order to win contracts. Once a project has been awarded to a consortium each member then concentrates on his or her own contract with the client. Therefore, consortia are marketing devices, which present the impression of teamworking, but the production process is just as fragmented as under conventional procurement methods. In this way, the consortium forms a barrier between the client and the actual construction production process. Firms form consortia, not as a simple development of normal ways of working, but because the circumstances for specific projects make it a necessary vehicle. These circumstances include projects that are too large or too complex to undertake alone or projects that require on-going services which cannot be provided by the individual firms inhouse. It is not a preferred way of working, because participants carry extra risk in the form of liability for the actions of their partners in the consortium. The behaviour of members of consortia is determined by their relative power, based on several factors, including financial commitment and ease of replacement. The level of supply chain visibility to the public sector client and to the industry is reduced by the existence of a consortium because the consortium forms an additional obstacle between the client and the firms undertaking the actual construction work. Supply chain visibility matters to the client who otherwise loses control over the process of construction or service provision, while remaining accountable for cost overruns. To overcome this separation there is a convincing argument in favour of adopting the approach put forward in the Project Partnering Contract 2000 (PPC2000) Agreement. Members of consortia do not necessarily go on to work in the same consortia again because members need to respond flexibly to opportunities as and when they arise. Decision-making processes within consortia tend to be on an ad hoc basis. Construction risk is taken by the contractor and the construction supply chain but the reputational risk is carried by all the firms associated with a consortium. There is a wide variation in the manner that consortia are formed, determined by the individual circumstances of each project; its requirements, size and complexity, and the attitude of individual project leaders. However, there are a number of close working relationships based on generic models of consortia-like arrangements for the purpose of building production, such as the Housing Corporation Guidance Notes and the PPC2000.

In-service and pre-service teachers' opinion on the use of models in teaching chemistry

The presented study examined the opinion of in-service and prospective chemistry teachers about the importance of usage of molecular and crystal models in secondary-level school practice, and investigated some of the reasons for their (non-) usage. The majority of participants stated that the use of models plays an important role in chemistry education and that they would use them more often if the circumstances were more favourable. Many teachers claimed that three-dimensional (3d) models are still not available in sufficient number at their schools; they also pointed to the lack of available computer facilities during chemistry lessons. The research revealed that, besides the inadequate material circumstances, less than one third of participants are able to use simple (freeware) computer programs for drawing molecular structures and their presentation in virtual space; however both groups of teachers expressed the willingness to improve their knowledge in the subject area. The investigation points to several actions which could be undertaken to improve the current situation.

Comparison of results from several AOGCMs for global and regional sea-level change 1900-2100

Sea-level rise is an important aspect of climate change because of its impact on society and ecosystems. Here we present an intercomparison of results from ten coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) for sea-level changes simulated for the twentieth century and projected to occur during the twenty first century in experiments following scenario IS92a for greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. The model results suggest that the rate of sea-level rise due to thermal expansion of sea water has increased during the twentieth century, but the small set of tide gauges with long records might not be adequate to detect this acceleration. The rate of sea-level rise due to thermal expansion continues to increase throughout the twenty first century, and the projected total is consequently larger than in the twentieth century; for 1990-2090 it amounts to 0.20-0.37 in. This wide range results from systematic uncertainty in modelling of climate change and of heat uptake by the ocean. The AOGCMs agree that sea-level rise is expected to be geographically non-uniform, with some regions experiencing as much as twice the global average, and others practically zero, but they do not agree about the geographical pattern. The lack of agreement indicates that we cannot currently have confidence in projections of local sea- level changes, and reveals a need for detailed analysis and intercomparison in order to understand and reduce the disagreements.

Current level of consensus on probiotic science: report of an expert meeting, London, 23 November 2009

The present paper summarizes  the consensus views of a group of 9 European clinicians and scientists on the current state of scientific knowledge on probiotics, covering those areas where there is substantial evidence for beneficial effects and those  where the evidence base is poor or inconsistent. There was general agreement that probiotic effects were species and often strain specific. The experts agreed  that some probiotics were effective in reducing the incidence and duration of rotavirus diarrhoea in infants, antibiotic-associated diarrhoea in adults and, for certain probiotics, Clostridium difficile infections. Some probiotics are associated with symptomatic improvements in irritable bowel syndrome and alleviation of digestive discomfort. Probiotics can reduce the frequency and severity of necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants and have been shown to regulate intestinal immunity.  Several other clinical effects of probiotics, including their role in inflammatory bowel disease, atopic dermatitis, respiratory or genito-urinary infections or H.pylori adjuvant treatment were thought promising but inconsistent.

Understanding and projecting sea level change

There is intense scientific and public interest in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of sea level for the twenty-first century and beyond. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) projections, obtained by applying standard methods to the results of the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Experiment, includes estimates of ocean thermal expansion, the melting of glaciers and ice caps (G&ICs), increased melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and increased precipitation over Greenland and Antarctica, partially offsetting other contributions. The AR4 recognized the potential for a rapid dynamic ice sheet response but robust methods for quantifying it were not available. Illustrative scenarios suggested additional sea level rise on the order of 10 to 20 cm or more, giving a wide range in the global averaged projections of about 20 to 80 cm by 2100. Currently, sea level is rising at a rate near the upper end of these projections. Since publication of the AR4 in 2007, biases in historical ocean temperature observations have been identified and significantly reduced, resulting in improved estimates of ocean thermal expansion. Models that include all climate forcings are in good agreement with these improved observations and indicate the importance of stratospheric aerosol loadings from volcanic eruptions. Estimates of the volumes of G&ICs and their contributions to sea level rise have improved. Results from recent (but possibly incomplete) efforts to develop improved ice sheet models should be available for the 2013 IPCC projections. Improved understanding of sea level rise is paving the way for using observations to constrain projections. Understanding of the regional variations in sea level change as a result of changes in ocean properties, wind-stress patterns, and heat and freshwater inputs into the ocean is improving. Recently, estimates of sea level changes resulting from changes in Earth's gravitational field and the solid Earth response to changes in surface loading have been included in regional projections. While potentially valuable, semi-empirical models have important limitations, and their projections should be treated with caution

Revisiting the Earth's sea-level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008

We review the sea-level and energy budgets together from 1961, using recent and updated estimates of all terms. From 1972 to 2008, the observed sea-level rise (1.8 ± 0.2 mm yr−1 from tide gauges alone and 2.1 ± 0.2 mm yr−1 from a combination of tide gauges and altimeter observations) agrees well with the sum of contributions (1.8 ± 0.4 mm yr−1) in magnitude and with both having similar increases in the rate of rise during the period. The largest contributions come from ocean thermal expansion (0.8 mm yr−1) and the melting of glaciers and ice caps (0.7 mm yr−1), with Greenland and Antarctica contributing about 0.4 mm yr−1. The cryospheric contributions increase through the period (particularly in the 1990s) but the thermosteric contribution increases less rapidly. We include an improved estimate of aquifer depletion (0.3 mm yr−1), partially offsetting the retention of water in dams and giving a total terrestrial storage contribution of −0.1 mm yr−1. Ocean warming (90% of the total of the Earth's energy increase) continues through to the end of the record, in agreement with continued greenhouse gas forcing. The aerosol forcing, inferred as a residual in the atmospheric energy balance, is estimated as −0.8 ± 0.4 W m−2 for the 1980s and early 1990s. It increases in the late 1990s, as is required for consistency with little surface warming over the last decade. This increase is likely at least partially related to substantial increases in aerosol emissions from developing nations and moderate volcanic activity