Modular transactional memory

Software transactional memory has the potential to greatly simplify development of concurrent software, by supporting safe composition of concurrent shared-state abstractions. However, STM semantics are defined in terms of low-level reads and writes on individual memory locations, so implementations are unable to take advantage of the properties of user-defined abstractions. Consequently, the performance of transactions over some structures can be disappointing. ----- ----- We present Modular Transactional Memory, our framework which allows programmers to extend STM with concurrency control algorithms tailored to the data structures they use in concurrent programs. We describe our implementation in Concurrent Haskell, and two example structures: a finite map which allows concurrent transactions to operate on disjoint sets of keys, and a non-deterministic channel which supports concurrent sources and sinks. ----- ----- Our approach is based on previous work by others on boosted and open-nested transactions, with one significant development: transactions are given types which denote the concurrency control algorithms they employ. Typed transactions offer a higher level of assurance for programmers reusing transactional code, and allow more flexible abstract concurrency control.

Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of web queries

In this paper, we define and present a comprehensive classification of user intent for Web searching. The classification consists of three hierarchical levels of informational, navigational, and transactional intent. After deriving attributes of each, we then developed a software application that automatically classified queries using a Web search engine log of over a million and a half queries submitted by several hundred thousand users. Our findings show that more than 80% of Web queries are informational in nature, with about 10% each being navigational and transactional. In order to validate the accuracy of our algorithm, we manually coded 400 queries and compared the results from this manual classification to the results determined by the automated method. This comparison showed that the automatic classification has an accuracy of 74%. Of the remaining 25% of the queries, the user intent is vague or multi-faceted, pointing to the need for probabilistic classification. We discuss how search engines can use knowledge of user intent to provide more targeted and relevant results in Web searching.

The Revised Transactional Model (RTM) of occupational stress and coping : an improved process approach

Despite more than three decades of research, there is a limited understanding of the transactional processes of appraisal, stress and coping. This has led to calls for more focused research on the entire process that underlies these variables. To date, there remains a paucity of such research. The present study examined Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) transactional model of stress and coping. One hundred and twenty nine Australian participants with full time employment (i.e. nurses and administration employees) were recruited. There were 49 male (age mean = 34, SD = 10.51) and 80 female (age mean = 36, SD = 10.31) participants. The analysis of three path models indicated that in addition to the original paths, which were found in Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model (primary appraisal-->secondary appraisal-->stress-->coping), there were also direct links between primary appraisal and stress level time one and between stress level time one to stress level time two. This study has provided additional insights into the transactional process which will extend our understanding of how individuals appraise, cope and experience occupational stress.

Boosting your product's country of origin

This article offers managerial implications for improving consumer perceptions of a product’s country of origin.

Boosting the margin: A new explanation for the effectiveness of voting methods

One of the surprising recurring phenomena observed in experiments with boosting is that the test error of the generated classifier usually does not increase as its size becomes very large, and often is observed to decrease even after the training error reaches zero. In this paper, we show that this phenomenon is related to the distribution of margins of the training examples with respect to the generated voting classification rule, where the margin of an example is simply the difference between the number of correct votes and the maximum number of votes received by any incorrect label. We show that techniques used in the analysis of Vapnik's support vector classifiers and of neural networks with small weights can be applied to voting methods to relate the margin distribution to the test error. We also show theoretically and experimentally that boosting is especially effective at increasing the margins of the training examples. Finally, we compare our explanation to those based on the bias-variance decomposition.

Boosting the effects of a curriculum based injury prevention program through a school connectedness intervention : final report to NRMA-ACT Road Safety Trust

Injury is the leading cause of death among young people (AIHW, 2008). A primary contributing factor to injury among adolescents is risk taking behaviour, including road related risks such as risky bicycle and motorcycle use and riding with dangerous or drink-drivers. Injury rates increase dramatically throughout adolescence, at the same time as adolescents are becoming more involved in risk taking behaviour. Also throughout this period, adolescents‟ connectedness to school is decreasing (Monahan, Oesterle & Hawkins, 2010; Whitlock, 2004). School connectedness refers to „the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school‟ (Goodenow, 1993, p. 80), and has been repeatedly shown to be a critical protective factor in adolescent development. For example, school connectedness has been shown to be associated with decreased risk taking behaviour, including violence and alcohol and other drug use (e.g., Resnick et al., 1997), as well as with decreased transport risk taking and vehicle related injuries (Chapman et al., accepted April 2011). This project involved the pilot evaluation of a school connectedness intervention (a professional development program for teachers) to reduce adolescent risk taking behaviour and injury. This intervention has been developed for use as a component of the Skills for Preventing Injury in Youth (SPIY) curriculum based injury prevention program for early adolescents. The objectives of this research were to: 1. Implement a trial School Connectedness intervention (professional development program for teachers) in ACT high schools, and evaluate using comparison high schools. 2. Determine whether the School Connectedness program impacts on adolescent risk taking behaviour and associated injuries (particularly transport risks and injuries). 3. Evaluate the process effectiveness of the School Connectedness program.

Magnetic nanoparticles boosting the osmotic efficiency of a polymeric FO draw agent: Effect of polymer conformation

Poly sodium acrylate (PSA)-coated Magnetic Nanoparticles (PSA-MNPs) were synthesized as smart osmotic draw agent (SMDA) for water desalination by forward osmosis (FO) process. The PSA-coated MNPs demonstrated significantly higher osmotic pressure (~ 30 fold) as well as high FO water flux (~ 2–3 fold) when compared to their polymer (polyelectrolyte) counterpart, even at a very low concentration of ~ 0.13 wt.% in the draw solution. The PSA polymer chain conformation – coiled to extended – demonstrates a significant impact on the availability of the polymer hydrophilic groups in solution which is the driving force to attain higher osmotic pressure and water flux. When an optimum concentration of the polymer was anchored to a NP surface, the polymer chains assume an extended open conformation making the functional hydrophilic groups available to attract water molecules. This in turn boosts the osmotic pressure and FO water flux of the PSA-MNP draw agents. The low concentration of the PSA-MNP osmotic agent and the associated high water flux enhances the cost-effectiveness of our proposed SMDA system. In addition, easier magnetic separation and regeneration of the SMDA also improves its usability making it efficient, cost-effective and environment-friendly.

Child temperament and parental personality: continuity and transactional change

Studying the continuity and underlying mechanisms of temperament change from early childhood through adulthood is clinically and theoretically relevant. Knowledge of the continuity and change of temperament from infancy onwards, especially as perceived by both parents is, however, still scanty. Only in recent years have researchers become aware that personality, long considered as stable in adulthood, may also change. Further, studies that focus on the transactional change of child temperament and parental personality also seem to be lacking, as are studies focusing on transactions between child temperament and more transient parental characteristics, like parental stress. Therefore, this longitudinal study examined the degree of continuity of temperament over five years from the infant s age of six months to the child s age of five and a half years, as perceived by both biological parents, and also investigated the bidirectional effects between child temperament and parents personality traits and overall stress experienced during that time. First, moderate to high levels of continuity of temperament from infancy to middle childhood were shown, depicting the developmental links between affectively positive and well-adjusted temperament characteristics, and between characteristics of early and later negative affectivity. The continuity of temperament was quantitatively and qualitatively similar in both parents ratings. The findings also demonstrate that infant and childhood temperament characteristics cluster to form stable temperament types that resemble personality types shown in child and adult personality studies. Second, the parental personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism were shown to be highly stable over five years, but evidence of change in relation to parents views of their child s temperament was also shown: an infant s higher positive affectivity predicted an increase in parental extraversion, while the infant s higher activity level predicted a decrease in parental neuroticism over five years. Furthermore, initially higher parental extraversion predicted higher ratings of the child s effortful control, while initially higher parental neuroticism predicted the child s higher negative affectivity. In terms of changes in parental stress, the infant s higher activity level predicted a decrease in maternal overall stress, while initially higher maternal stress predicted a higher level of child negative affectivity in middle childhood. Together, the results demonstrate that the mother- and father-rated temperament of the child shows continuity during the early years of life, but also support the view that the development of these characteristics is sensitive to important contextual factors such as parental personality and overall stress. While parental personality and experienced stress were shown to have an effect on the child s developing temperament, the reverse was also true: the parents own personality traits and perceived stress seemed to be highly stable, but also susceptible to their experiences of their child s temperament.

Boosting the productivity and profitability of northern Australian beef enterprises: Exploring innovation options using simulation modelling and systems analysis

The financial health of beef cattle enterprises in northern Australia has declined markedly over the last decade due to an escalation in production and marketing costs and a real decline in beef prices. Historically, gains in animal productivity have offset the effect of declining terms of trade on farm incomes. This raises the question of whether future productivity improvements can remain a key path for lifting enterprise profitability sufficient to ensure that the industry remains economically viable over the longer term. The key objective of this study was to assess the production and financial implications for north Australian beef enterprises of a range of technology interventions (development scenarios), including genetic gain in cattle, nutrient supplementation, and alteration of the feed base through introduced pastures and forage crops, across a variety of natural environments. To achieve this objective a beef systems model was developed that is capable of simulating livestock production at the enterprise level, including reproduction, growth and mortality, based on energy and protein supply from natural C4 pastures that are subject to high inter-annual climate variability. Comparisons between simulation outputs and enterprise performance data in three case study regions suggested that the simulation model (the Northern Australia Beef Systems Analyser) can adequately represent the performance beef cattle enterprises in northern Australia. Testing of a range of development scenarios suggested that the application of individual technologies can substantially lift productivity and profitability, especially where the entire feedbase was altered through legume augmentation. The simultaneous implementation of multiple technologies that provide benefits to different aspects of animal productivity resulted in the greatest increases in cattle productivity and enterprise profitability, with projected weaning rates increasing by 25%, liveweight gain by 40% and net profit by 150% above current baseline levels, although gains of this magnitude might not necessarily be realised in practice. While there were slight increases in total methane output from these development scenarios, the methane emissions per kg of beef produced were reduced by 20% in scenarios with higher productivity gain. Combinations of technologies or innovative practices applied in a systematic and integrated fashion thus offer scope for providing the productivity and profitability gains necessary to maintain viable beef enterprises in northern Australia into the future.

Drive current boosting of n-type tunnel FET with strained SiGe layer at source

Though silicon tunnel field effect transistor (TFET) has attracted attention for sub-60 mV/decade subthreshold swing and very small OFF current (IOFF), its practical application is questionable due to low ON current (ION) and complicated fabrication process steps. In this paper, a new n-type classical-MOSFET-alike tunnel FET architecture is proposed, which offers sub-60 mV/decade subthreshold swing along with a significant improvement in ION. The enhancement in ION is achieved by introducing a thin strained SiGe layer on top of the silicon source. Through 2D simulations it is observed that the device is nearly free from short channel effect (SCE) and its immunity towards drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) increases with increasing germanium mole fraction. It is also found that the body bias does not change the drive current but after body current gets affected. An ION of View the MathML source and a minimum average subthreshold swing of 13 mV/decade is achieved for 100 nm channel length device with 1.2 V supply voltage and 0.7 Ge mole fraction, while maintaining the IOFF in fA range.

Boosting morale and improving performance in the nursing setting

AIM AND BACKGROUND: While the importance of morale is well researched in the nursing literature, strategies and interventions are not so prolific. The complexities of interpersonal relationships within the clinical domain, and the critical issues faced by nurses on a daily basis, indicate that morale, job satisfaction and motivation are essential components in improving workplace efficiency, output and communication amongst staff. Drawing on educational, organizational and psychological literature, this paper argues that the ability to inspire morale in staff is a fundamental indicator of sound leadership and managerial characteristics. EVALUATION AND KEY ISSUES: Four practical concepts that could be implemented in the clinical setting are proposed. These include: role preparation for managers, understanding internal and external motivation, fostering internal motivation in nursing staff, and the importance of attitude when investing in relationships.

Variable Granularity Access Tracking Scheme for Improving the Performance of Software Transactional Memory

Software transactional memory (STM) has been proposed as a promising programming paradigm for shared memory multi-threaded programs as an alternative to conventional lock based synchronization primitives. Typical STM implementations employ a conflict detection scheme, which works with uniform access granularity, tracking shared data accesses either at word/cache line or at object level. It is well known that a single fixed access tracking granularity cannot meet the conflicting goals of reducing false conflicts without impacting concurrency adversely. A fine grained granularity while improving concurrency can have an adverse impact on performance due to lock aliasing, lock validation overheads, and additional cache pressure. On the other hand, a coarse grained granularity can impact performance due to reduced concurrency. Thus, in general, a fixed or uniform granularity access tracking (UGAT) scheme is application-unaware and rarely matches the access patterns of individual application or parts of an application, leading to sub-optimal performance for different parts of the application(s). In order to mitigate the disadvantages associated with UGAT scheme, we propose a Variable Granularity Access Tracking (VGAT) scheme in this paper. We propose a compiler based approach wherein the compiler uses inter-procedural whole program static analysis to select the access tracking granularity for different shared data structures of the application based on the application's data access pattern. We describe our prototype VGAT scheme, using TL2 as our STM implementation. Our experimental results reveal that VGAT-STM scheme can improve the application performance of STAMP benchmarks from 1.87% to up to 21.2%.