Time Expires Research Articles

NegotiAge: Development and pilot testing of an artificial intelligence-based family caregiver negotiation program.

Family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease experience conflicts as they navigate health care but lack training to resolve these disputes. We sought to develop and pilot test an artificial-intelligence negotiation training program, NegotiAge, for family caregivers. We convened negotiation experts, a geriatrician, a social worker, and community-based family caregivers. Content matter experts created short videos to teach negotiation skills. Caregivers generated dialogue surrounding conflicts. Computer scientists utilized the dialogue with the Interactive Arbitration Guide Online (IAGO) platform to develop avatar-based agents (e.g., sibling, older adult, physician) for caregivers to practice negotiating. Pilot testing was conducted with family caregivers to assess usability (USE) and satisfaction (open-ended questions with thematic analysis). Development: With NegotiAge, caregivers progress through didactic material, then receive scenarios to negotiate (e.g., physician recommends gastric tube, sibling disagrees with home support, older adult refusing support). Caregivers negotiate in real-time with avatars who are designed to act like humans, including emotional tactics and irrational behaviors. Caregivers send/receive offers, using tactics until either mutual agreement or time expires. Immediate feedback is generated for the user to improve skills training. Pilot testing: Family caregivers (n = 12) completed the program and survey. USE questionnaire (Likert scale 1-7) subset scores revealed: (1) Useful-Mean 5.69 (SD 0.76); (2) Ease-Mean 5.24 (SD 0.96); (3) Learn-Mean 5.69 (SD 0.74); (4) Satisfy-Mean 5.62 (SD 1.10). Items that received over 80% agreements were: It helps me be more effective; It helps me be more productive; It is useful; It gives me more control over the activities in my life; It makes the things I want to accomplish easier to get done. Participants were highly satisfied and found NegotiAge fun to use (91.7%), with 100% who would recommend it to a friend. NegotiAge is an Artificial-Intelligent Caregiver Negotiation Program, that is usable and feasible for family caregivers to become familiar with negotiating conflicts commonly seen in health care.

CREATION OF A FAMILY CAREGIVER NEGOTIATION TRAINING PROGRAM USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract Family caregivers of people with dementia (PWD) experience conflicts as they navigate the healthcare system but do not have adequate training to resolve these disputes. We sought to develop and pilot test an artificial-intelligence negotiation training program, NegotiAge, for family caregivers. With NIH funding [R01AG068421], we convened a team of negotiation experts, geriatrician, social worker, and community-based family caregivers (Illinois/Florida/New York/California). Content matter experts created informational videos to teach negotiation skills. Family caregivers generated dialogue surrounding caregiver conflicts. Computer science experts input generated dialogue into the Interactive Arbitration Guide Online (IAGO) platform to develop avatar-based agents (e.g. sibling, older adult, physician) for caregivers to practice negotiating. Family caregivers review didactic material then access scenarios to negotiate (e.g. physician recommendations, sibling disagrees with care, PWD refusing support). Caregivers negotiate in real-time with avatars designed to act like humans, including emotional and irrational behaviors. Caregivers can use negotiation tactics until either mutual agreement occurs or time expires. Immediate feedback is generated from the responses chosen and tactics to assist with the negotiation skills training. Pilot testing was conducted with family caregivers of PWD (n=12) and showed that the negotiation and conflict resolution training program was feasible and usable for family caregivers. Subjects found the program to present real-world applicability. NegotiAge is an Artificial Intelligence-based Caregiver Negotiation Program, that is usable and feasible for family caregivers to become familiar with navigating conflicts seen in caring for PWD.

Analysis of a Multi-Server Queue with Group Service and Service Time Dependent on the Size of a Group as a Model of a Delivery System

In this paper, we consider a multi-server queue with a finite buffer. Request arrivals are defined by the Markov arrival process. Service is provided to groups of requests. The minimal and maximal group sizes are fixed. The service time of a group has a phase-type distribution with an irreducible representation depending on the size of the group. The requests are impatient. The patience time for an arbitrary request has an exponential distribution. After this time expires, the request is lost if all servers are busy or, if some server is idle, with a certain probability, all requests staying in the buffer start their service even if their number is below the required minimum. The behavior of the system is described by a multi-dimensional continuous-time Markov chain that does not belong to the class of level-independent quasi-birth-and-death processes. The algorithm for the computation of the stationary distribution of this chain is presented, and expressions for the computation of the queuing system’s performance characteristics are derived. The description of a delivery system operation in terms of the analyzed queuing model is given, and the problem of the optimization of its operation is numerically solved. Multi-server queues with a phase-type distribution for the group service time that are dependent on the size of the group, the account of request impatience, and the correlated arrival process have not previously been analyzed in the existing literature. However, they represent a precise model of many real-world objects, including delivery systems.

Towards Enhancing Effective Participation of Reluctant EFL Students in Presentation Sessions at Qassim University

The current paper's objective is to determine why some EFL students at Qassim University, KSA, find it difficult to give their public presentations demanded by some departments’ curricula as a college requirement. Recently, the author observed that some EFL students are very reluctant to participate in public speaking sessions until the allotted time expires although they know that they are going to lose grades at the end of the day for not participating. A quantitative research methodology is used to acquire the data. A questionnaire containing (17) items was designed and distributed to a sample of (52) EFL students representing the total number of students enrolled in two theoretical linguistic courses during the academic year (1443 -1444). After collecting and analysing the data, the study showed that some students feel shy and intentionally avoid public speech in EFL classes because they come with hardly negligible experiences in public speech when enrolled as tertiary-level students.

Using Connected Vehicle Data to Reassess Dilemma Zone Performance of Heavy Vehicles

The rate of fatalities at signalized intersections involving heavy vehicles is nearly five times higher than for passenger vehicles in the US. Previous studies in the US have found that heavy vehicles are twice as likely to violate a red light compared with passenger vehicles. Current technologies leverage setback detection to extend green time for a particular phase and are based upon typical deceleration rates for passenger cars. Furthermore, dilemma zone detectors are not effective when the max out time expires and forces the onset of yellow. This study proposes the use of connected vehicle (CV) technology to trigger force gap out (FGO) before a vehicle is expected to arrive within the dilemma zone limit at max out time. The method leverages position data from basic safety messages (BSMs) to map-match virtual waypoints located up to 1,050 ft in advance of the stop bar. For a 55 mph approach, field tests determined that using a 6 ft waypoint radius at 50 ft spacings would be sufficient to match 95% of BSM data within a 5% lag threshold of 0.59 s. The study estimates that FGOs reduce dilemma zone incursions by 34% for one approach and had no impact for the other. For both approaches, the total dilemma zone incursions decreased from 310 to 225. Although virtual waypoints were used for evaluating FGO, the study concludes by recommending that trajectory-based processing logic be incorporated into controllers for more robust support of dilemma zone and other emerging CV applications.

Transient analysis of impatient customers in an M/M/1 disasters queue in random environment

Purpose This paper aims to consider a single server queue with system disasters and impatience behavior are evident in our daily life. For this purpose, authors require to know the general behavior of these systems. Transient analysis shows for us how the system will operate up to some time instant t. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, authors consider a single server queue with system disaster and impatient behavior of customers in a multi-phase random environment, in which the system transits to a repair state after each system disaster. When the system is in a failure phase or going through a repair phase, the new arrivals would be impatient. In case the system is not repaired before the customer’s time expires, the customer would leave the queue and never return. Moreover, after repair, the system becomes ready for service in an operative phase with probability $q_{i} \ge 0.$. Using generating functions along with continued fractions and some properties of the confluent hypergeometric function, authors obtained on their own results. Findings Explicit expressions have been obtained for the time-dependent probabilities of the underlying queuing model. Also, time-dependent mean and variance of customers in the system are deduced. Research limitations/implications The system authors are dealing with is somewhat complicated, there are some performance measures that cannot be achieved, but some of them have been obtained, such as the expectation and variance of the number of customers in the system. Practical implications Based on the obtained results, some numerical examples are some numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effect of various parameters on the behavior of the proposed system. Social implications Authors’ studied transient analysis of a single server queue with system disaster and impatient customer system is suitable for behavior interpretation of many systems in our lives, such as telecommunication networks, inventory systems and impatient telephone switchboard customers, manufacturing system and service system. Originality/value To the best of the author’s/authors’ knowledge and according to the literature survey, in a multi-phase random environment, no previous published article is presented for transient analysis of a single server queue with system disaster and impatient customer behavior in a random environment.

PRE HOSPITAL AID TRAINING IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY

When providing the prehospital aid the most important factor is time. The more time expires from the moment of receiving injury until delivery to a hospital, the worse forecast becomes for a victim. Mortality grows geometrically. So, for example, in cases of transport injuries if medical care was provided within 30 minutes – 1 hour, then mortality among injured did not exceed 30%. If this time increases, then the mortality reaches 60-80%, and growth in a geometrical progression takes place. In general, it becomes clear that even two injured from three ones who died in city streets, could be saved if they received the help in due time [2].
 Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine the project of the Law of Ukraine about full general secondary education dated April 5, 2019 № 10204.
 This project of the Law provides that all teachers will take courses on the prehospital help. It has to reduce the quantity of death of children during lessons.
 Protection of children’s health is one of the mandatory functions of the educational organization. If it is necessary, the first aid at school is to be given to the child both professionally and in time. 
 Teachers, studying a profession in higher education institution, have to be trained on providing the prehospital help. There is nothing more important, than rendering the prehospital help to the child during the first minutes after a trauma or in the event of a symptom hazardous to health, for example, epilepsy [3].
 The purpose of the article is to highlight the importance of teaching teachers and students the skills of rendering the prehospital help.
 According to the Law of Ukraine “About the Emergency Medical Care”, persons who have no medical education, but according to their the official duties they have to provide the first aid and to manage main practical skills on rescue and preservation a human life for those who require that, have to be the first who study the prehospital help [4].
 And based on the project of the Law of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine mentioned above teachers can also be referred to the category of persons who have no medical education and are obliged to provide the prehospital help though it is not included into their official duties.
 Except the planned training of the teachers of the prehospital help, to our opinion, there should be also started a training of pupils on the program of the first level [5] which first of all provides obtaining practical skills of rendering the prehospital help to the injured at cardiac arrest and breath before arrival of the emergency medical care.
 The training program “Protection of the Fatherland” for pupils of 10-11 classes is introducted for gradual increasing of the number of the citizens in the system of secondary education, who manage the skills of the prehospital help [7]. Such a program, in the question of pre-hospital help, combines teaching theoretical knowledge with a practical training with use of dummies and other other visual materials.
 Every year All-Ukrainian gathering and competition of young rescuers “School of Safety” is also provided where the pupils, who are 12 years old and older show their abilities on providing the pre-hospital help to the injured.
 The last two years we had an opportunity to compare theoretical knowledge and practical skills of the prehospital help of pupils who finished the 11th class and studied according to the program “Protection of the Fatherland” and pupils of the 8-9 classes who were trained by the “School of Safety”.
 It turned out to be that the pupils of 8-9 classes, in the majority, prevail on the level of knowledge of the prehospital help the graduates of high school.
 In our opinion, it is expedient to develop and implement at secondary school the program of training of rendering help to injured who are in emergency, for pupils, starting from the fifth class.
 Anybody, irrespective of a profession, is able to be trained and to manage the skills of the prehospital aid. The trauma or accident can happen at any time. Not only success of further treatment, but sometimes human life depends on prehospital help provided timely and correctly. In certain cases the victim has to render prehospital help to himself - to stop bleeding, to put the bandage etc.
 That all is not difficult, but it is necessary to take the corresponding training for mastering skills of rendering the prehospital help.
 In our opinion, in modern conditions it is compulsory to:
 introduce the permanent prehospital help training for tutors and nurses of preschool institutions;
 introduce the permanent prehospital help training in schools for children, starting from the age 12 years old and older.

Open Problem—Regarding Static Priority Scheduling for Many-Server Queues with Reneging

We study the many-server queue shown in Figure 1(a). Customers from class j ∈ {1, 2} arrive according to renewal processes having rate λj > 0 and request processing. There are N ∈ {1, 2,…} servers, each working at rate one. All servers are fully flexible; that is, every server can serve customers from both classes. Each customer has a randomly distributed patience time that may depend on the class and reneges (abandons the system without receiving service) if service does not begin before the patience time expires. The system incurs the penalty p1 > 0 when a class 1 customer reneges and the penalty p2 > 0 when a class 2 customer reneges. Upon arrival, each class j customer independently samples from the distribution determined by cumulative distribution function (cdf) [Formula: see text] having mean 1/θj < ∞ to find its patience time and from the distribution determined by cdf [Formula: see text] having mean 1/μj < ∞ to determine its service time (that is, the required processing time).

PERLINDUNGAN HUKUM TERHADAP TENAGA KERJA ASING (TKA) AKIBAT PEMUTUSAN HUBUNGAN KERJA (PHK) SECARA SEPIHAK OLEH PERUSAHAAN MENURUT UNDANG-UNDANG NOMOR 13 TAHUN 2003 TENTANG KETENAGAKERJAAN (STUDI KASUS PUTUSAN PENGADILAN HUBUNGAN INDUSTRIAL NOMOR 1285/PDT.SUS-PHI/2015/PN.JKT.PST Jo. PUTUSAN MAHKAMAH AGUNG NOMOR 133 K/PDT.SUS-PHI/2017 Jo. PUTUSAN MAHKAMAH AGUNG NOMOR 165 PK/PDT.SUS-PHI/2018)

Termination of employment is one of the last attempts carried out by the company if no agreement is reached between the parties. However, all efforts must be made in advance so that Termination of Employment does not occur, as stated in Article 151 paragraph (1) of Law No. 13 of 2003 concerning Manpower. The subject matter of this case can be seen from the results of the Judicial Review with Decision Number 165 P / Pdt.Sus-PHI / 2018, stating that the Defendant has unilaterally terminated the Work Relationship and is obliged to pay compensation to the Plaintiff in the form of wages until the IMTA end. Even though according to Article 62 of Law No. 13 of 2003 concerning Labor states that if one party terminates a work relationship before the time expires, the party ending the employment relationship is obliged to pay the worker or labor wage until the expiration of the term of the work agreement. In addition to that, the other main issue is the supervision of the Ministry of Manpower on the use of Foreign Workers (TKA) related to this case. The type of research used is the normative research method.

VIRTAL MACHINE PLACEMENT OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR ENERGY RESERVATION

© 2019 Int. J. of GEOMATE. Cloud computing has been widely deployed. The virtual machines (VMs) are created in servers upon the requests from users and they are deleted from the servers after the rental time expires. This is called dynamic workload condition. VMs should be consolidated into the servers to reduce the number of servers running VMs. Servers that do not have any VMs should be changed to sleep mode to reduce energy consumption. Therefore, VM scheduling which selects servers to run VMs has to find servers to place VMs and has to migrate servers under this dynamic workload condition. However, migration also consumes energy, so the number of migrations should be limited to save energy. In this paper, a VM scheduling method called Energy-Aware Scheduling Updating (ESU) which reduces total energy consumption in the data center is purposed. It chooses servers to create VMs. In addition, it updates the locations of VMs when changes occur while it limits the number of migrations to reduce energy consumption. The performance is of ESU is evaluated by computer simulation. The results show that ESU has a better performance considering energy consumption among the protocols used in comparison.

Developing childhood vaccine administration and inventory replenishment policies that minimize open vial wastage

In the last century, many infectious diseases have been completely eradicated or significantly reduced because of childhood vaccinations. Ample evidence suggests that low vaccination coverage in developing countries is caused by vaccine stockout and high rates of vaccine wastage. Wastage occurs when a vaccine vial is physically damaged or exposed to extreme temperatures, or when doses from an open vial are discarded after their safe-use time expires. The latter is referred to as open vial wastage (OVW). Clinics can use single-dose vials to reduce OVW; however, such an approach is more expensive than using multi-dose vials. The focus of this research is to develop new policies that support vaccine administration and inventory replenishment. These policies are expected to reduce OVW, reduce the cost of vaccinations, and improve vaccination coverage levels in developing countries. This paper proposes a two-stage stochastic programming model that identifies an optimal combination of differently sized vaccine vials and the corresponding decisions that clinics make about opening vials in the face of uncertain patient arrivals. This work develops a case study with data gathered from Bangladesh. Experimental results indicate that using a combination of vials of different sizes reduces OVW, as opposed to the current practice of using single-sized multi-dose vials. Experimental results also point to simple and economic vaccine administration policies that health care administrators can use to minimize OVW. The model is solved using an extension of the stochastic Benders decomposition algorithm, the L-shaped method (LS). This algorithm uses Gomory mixed integer and mixed-integer rounding cuts to address the problem’s non-convexity. Computational results reveal that the solution approach presented here outperforms the standard LS method.

DESIGN of AUTOMATIC ORGANIC WASTE CRUSHER USING ARDUINO MICROCONTROLLER

Organic waste is the residual daily activities of humans or natural processes in the form of solid or semi-solid in the form of organic or inorganic substances that are biodegradable or unraveled which are considered useless and disposed of in the environment. This organic waste can be used as fertilizer for plants if processed properly, therefore this waste can be used as fertilizer processing by destroying, so this study aims to create a tool that can destroy waste so that it is easy to process using an Arduino microcontroller, the design is done ranging from hardware to software. The way the device works is to detect the material to be destroyed, then the system will be active, the tool is designed a choice of time for the material to be destroyed so that the appliance will automatically die when the time expires and the choice of blade rotation speed from maximum, medium to minimum. From the experiments carried out the tool was able to destroy the material until smooth. DOI : https://doi.org/10.26905/jeemecs.v1i2.2377

Situation criticality and basketball officials’ stress levels

ABSTRACTOfficials are expected to perform impeccably despite the wide range of stressors they experience. A stressor that officials frequently report is situation criticality. Situation criticality is comprised of score differential (i.e., more pressure in close games) and time remaining in a game (i.e., more pressure as time expires), which affects athletes’ stress levels. The present study explored the effect of situation criticality on officials’ stress levels. High school basketball officials (n = 108) with an average of 18.1 (SD = 11.2) years of officiating experience were given a survey packet containing game situations that varied in criticality. For each game situation (n = 9) officials completed the overall stress and appraisal portions of the Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM). Results revealed that situation criticality has an effect on officials’ perceived stress levels. Both threat and challenge appraisals were positively correlated with perceived stress. Overall, these findings indicate that officials’ stress levels fluctuate within games depending on score differential and time of game. The findings encourage officials to recognise and manage their stress, possibly through their appraisals. Additionally, the findings can affect the training of officials in the management of stress, as well as prompt the consideration of potential rule changes that reflect the increased situational demands on officials in critical situations (e.g., expanded instant replay).

Priority tandem queueing system with retrials and reservation of channels as a model of call center

We study a tandem queueing system consisting of two multi-server stations and finite intermediate buffer. Customers arrive at the first station of the tandem according to a Markovian Arrival Process. The first station does not have a buffer. Customers, who do not succeed to enter the service immediately upon arrival, retry for the service after a random amount of time. After service completion at the first station, a customer leaves the system permanently or moves for the service at the second station. A part of customers entering the second station have a priority over other customers. The priority is provided by means of reservation of a part of servers for the service of priority customers only. Usually, non-priority customers are not allowed to occupy the reserved servers. However, if the queue of non-priority customers in the intermediate buffer becomes larger than some preassigned threshold while there are free servers, a non-priority customer is picked-up for the service. Customers staying in the buffer are impatient. Priority and non-priority customers have different patience time and may leave the system or return to the first station if the patience time expires. The system is analyzed in steady state. A condition for existence of the stationary regime in the system is derived, the steady state distribution and various performance measures of the system are calculated, some illustrative numerical examples are discussed. A tandem queue under consideration is suitable, e.g., for modeling call centers with Interactive Voice Response Machines. Analysis presented in this paper was implemented in borders of the applied project funded by one of the banks.

Evidence for an enduring ischaemic penumbra following central retinal artery occlusion, with implications for fibrinolytic therapy.

The rationale behind hyperacute fibrinolytic therapy for cerebral and retinal arterial occlusion is to rescue ischaemic cells from irreversible damage through timely restitution of tissue perfusion. In cerebral stroke, an anoxic tissue compartment (the "infarct core") is surrounded by a hypoxic compartment (the "ischaemic penumbra"). The latter comprises electrically-silent neurons that undergo delayed apoptotic cell death within 1-6 h unless salvaged by arterial recanalisation. Establishment of an equivalent hypoxic compartment within the inner retina following central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) isn't widely acknowledged. During experimental CRAO, electroretinography reveals 3 oxygenation-based tissue compartments (anoxic, hypoxic and normoxic) that contribute 32%, 27% and 41% respectively to the pre-occlusion b-wave amplitude. Thus, once the anoxia survival time (≈2 h) expires, the contribution from the infarcted posterior retina is irreversibly extinguished, but electrical activity continues in the normoxic periphery. Inbetween these compartments, an annular hypoxic zone (the "penumbra obscura") endures in a structurally-intact but functionally-impaired state until retinal reperfusion allows rapid recovery from electrical silence. Clinically, residual circulation of sufficient volume flow rate generates the heterogeneous fundus picture of "partial" CRAO. Persistent retinal venous hypoxaemia signifies maximal extraction of oxygen by an enduring "polar penumbra" that permeates or largely replaces the infarct core. On retinal reperfusion some days later, the retinal venous oxygen saturation reverts to normal and vision improves. Thus, penumbral inner retina, marginally oxygenated by the choroid or by residual circulation, isn't at risk of delayed apoptotic infarction (unlike hypoxic cerebral cortex). Emergency fibrinolytic intervention is inappropriate, therefore, once the duration of CRAO exceeds 2 h.

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN DYNAMIC WINDOW SECURED IMPLICIT GEOGRAPHIC FORWARDING ROUTING PROTOCOL

An Ideal WSNs should operate with the least possible energy required in order to increase the lifetime of the sensor nodes and at the same time, ensure network connectivity. But the Inherent power limitation makes power-awareness a critical requirement for WSN, this calls for the need to manage energy in sensor nodes. Also In order to ensure successful transmission of data from sensor node source to destination, it becomes necessary to maintain network availability. The network must be resilient to individual node failure which can happen due to zero power posses by the node and due to security attacks posed on the node and the network. Dynamic Window Secured Implicit Geographic Forwarding (DWSIGF) routing protocol has proven to be robust, efficient and resistant to some security attack which causes failure in network availability. However the extent to which energy is consumed in sensor nodes which deploys DWSIGF as its routing protocol has never been mentioned. In this research, we performed a comparative study on energy consumption in DWSIGF routing protocol. Using the first order radio model, we determined the energy consumed in a network. The protocol (DWSIGF) is matched up against its counterpart SIGF as the traffic is increased. Observation shows that DWSIGF due to the variable timing assigned to the CTS collection window, CTS signal fails to reach destination as collection window time expires, thus the need for retransmission. This in turn consumes more energy than the counterpart SIGF which has a fixed CTS collection time. The simulation work was done using Matlab 7.0. Energy consumed in the random variant of both protocols (DWSIGF and SIGF) was also observed to be higher than the priority variant of the protocols.

Data delivery scheme for intermittently connected mobile sensor networks

In mobile sensor networks, connectivity between nodes is intermittent due to blockage of radio and nodal mobility. Consequently, the efficient delivery of packets requires nodes communicate while connectivity is reliable and delay during other times. In such cases, the challenging issue is setting delay duration at each node. In this paper, we aim to provide a reliable data delivery scheme for mobile sensor networks with an enhanced delaying technique. In the proposed scheme, nodes estimate connectivity and expect inter-encounter time with sink nodes. Connectivity is estimated based on ratio of past and present connections. When the connectivity is unreliable, nodes delay the transmission for the remaining inter-encounter duration or per-hop lifetime. Since packets are forwarded if the connectivity reaches a reliable threshold before delay time expires, delivery latency is significantly reduced. Our scheme adopts receiver-based opportunistic forwarding to reduce delivery cost. To this end, we analyze the connectivity estimation and optimal delaying technique via theory and simulation. The proposed protocol deals well with network partitioning and indefinite link disconnection, which often arises in mobile sensor networks, and satisfies the requirement for delivery latency. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol outperforms other protocols in terms of packet delivery and per packet delivery cost.

Impact on Performance and Energy of the Retention Time and Processor Frequency in L1 Macrocell-Based Data Caches

Cache memories dissipate an important amount of the energy budget in current microprocessors. This is mainly due to cache cells are typically implemented with six transistors. To tackle this design concern, recent research has focused on the proposal of new cache cells. An <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> -bit cache cell, namely macrocell, has been proposed in a previous work. This cell combines SRAM and eDRAM technologies with the aim of reducing energy consumption while maintaining the performance. The capacitance of eDRAM cells impacts on energy consumption and performance since these cells lose their state once the retention time expires. On such a case, data must be fetched from a lower level of the memory hierarchy, so negatively impacting on performance and energy consumption. As opposite, if the capacitance is too high, energy would be wasted without bringing performance benefits. This paper identifies the optimal capacitance for a given processor frequency. To this end, the tradeoff between performance and energy consumption of a macrocell-based cache has been evaluated varying the capacitance and frequency. Experimental results show that, compared to a conventional cache, performance losses are lower than 2% and energy savings are up to 55% for a cache with 10 fF capacitors and frequencies higher than 1 GHz. In addition, using trench capacitors, a 4-bit macrocell reduces by 29% the area of four conventional SRAM cells.

Time Sensitive Functionals in a Queue with Sequential Maintenance

We use semi-regenerative, fluctuations methods, and sequential games to examine a queueing system with server performing a secondary maintenance work. When the buffer becomes empty, the server leaves the system to service packets of jobs at a maintenance facility where his time there is restricted by T (a random time). He returns to the system when his sojourn time expires and if the last packet is fully processed. If the buffer contents is below N, the server departs from the system again to continue with maintenance; this time rendering just one packet at a time until the buffer is replenished. We obtain compact and explicit functionals for the queueing process in equilibrium for both discrete and continuous time parameter processes.

A polling model with an autonomous server

This paper considers polling systems with an autonomous server that remains at a queue for an exponential amount of time before moving to a next queue incurring a generally distributed switch-over time. The server remains at a queue until the exponential visit time expires, also when the queue becomes empty. If the queue is not empty when the visit time expires, service is preempted upon server departure, and repeated when the server returns to the queue. The paper first presents a necessary and sufficient condition for stability, and subsequently analyzes the joint queue-length distribution via an embedded Markov chain approach. As the autonomous exponential visit times may seem to result in a system that closely resembles a system of independent queues, we explicitly investigate the approximation of our system via a system of independent vacation queues. This approximation is accurate for short visit times only.