Unnecessary References Research Articles

Decoupled Branch Predictor for Embedded DSP

This letter presents a novel approach for designing a dynamic branch predictor. The proposed design, called decoupled-predictor literally decouples the prediction making from the prediction update stages of the scheme. This separation is intended to tailor each part for its particular task and to reduce unnecessary references to these parts. In this letter, we show that embedded digital signal processors (DSPs) can benefit from dynamic branch prediction while staying within strict memory limitations. This letter presents a detailed description of the predictor architecture and evaluates its performance through a set of trace driven simulations of embedded DSP applications. Finally, we address the design cost efficiency by offering memory saving optimizations.

Views on the peer review system of biomedical journals: an online survey of academics from high-ranking universities

BackgroundPeer review is the major method used by biomedical journals for making the decision of publishing an article. This cross-sectional survey assesses views concerning the review system of biomedical journals among academics globally.MethodsA total of 28,009 biomedical academics from high-ranking universities listed by the 2009 Times Higher Education Quacquarelli Symonds (THE-QS) World University Rankings were contacted by email between March 2010 and August 2010. 1,340 completed an online survey which focused on their academic background, negative experiences and views on biomedical journal peer review and the results were compared among basic scientists, clinicians and clinician scientists.ResultsFewer than half of the respondents agreed that the peer review systems of biomedical journals were fair (48.4%), scientific (47.5%), or transparent (25.1%). Nevertheless, 58.2% of the respondents agreed that authors should remain anonymous and 64.4% agreed that reviewers should not be disclosed. Most, (67.7%) agreed to the establishment of an appeal system. The proportion of native English-speaking respondents who agreed that the “peer review system is fair” was significantly higher than for non-native respondents (p = 0.02). Similarly, the proportion of clinicians stating that the “peer review system is fair” was significantly higher than that for basic scientists and clinician-scientists (p = 0.004). For females, (β = −0.1, p = 0.03), the frequency of encountering personal attacks in reviewers’ comments (β = −0.1, p = 0.002) and the frequency of imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers (β = −0.06, p = 0.04) were independently and inversely associated with agreement that “the peer review system is fair”.ConclusionAcademics are divided on the issue of whether the biomedical journal peer review system is fair, scientific and transparent. A majority of academics agreed with the double-blind peer review and to the establishment of an appeal system. Female academics, experience of personal attacks and imposition of unnecessary references by reviewers were related to disagreement about fairness of the peer review system of biomedical journals.

LeakChaser

In large programs written in managed languages such as Java and C#, holding unnecessary references often results in memory leaks and bloat, degrading significantly their run-time performance and scalability. Despite the existence of many leak detectors for such languages, these detectors often target low-level objects; as a result, their reports contain many false warnings and lack sufficient semantic information to help diagnose problems. This paper introduces a specification-based technique called LeakChaser that can not only capture precisely the unnecessary references leading to leaks, but also explain, with high-level semantics, why these references become unnecessary.

LeakChaser

In large programs written in managed languages such as Java and C#, holding unnecessary references often results in memory leaks and bloat, degrading significantly their run-time performance and scalability. Despite the existence of many leak detectors for such languages, these detectors often target low-level objects; as a result, their reports contain many false warnings and lack sufficient semantic information to help diagnose problems. This paper introduces a specification-based technique called LeakChaser that can not only capture precisely the unnecessary references leading to leaks, but also explain, with high-level semantics, why these references become unnecessary. At the heart of LeakChaser is a three-tier approach that uses varying levels of abstraction to assist programmers with different skill levels and code familiarity to find leaks. At the highest tier of the approach, the programmer only needs to specify the boundaries of coarse-grained activities, referred to as transactions. The tool automatically infers liveness properties of these transactions, by monitoring the execution, in order to find unnecessary references. Diagnosis at this tier can be performed by any programmer after inspecting the APIs and basic modules of a program, without understanding of the detailed implementation of these APIs. At the middle tier, the programmer can introduce application-specific semantic information by specifying properties for the transactions. At the lowest tier of the approach is a liveness checker that does not rely on higher-level semantic information, but rather allows a programmer to assert lifetime relationships for pairs of objects. This task could only be performed by skillful programmers who have a clear understanding of data structures and algorithms in the program. We have implemented LeakChaser in Jikes RVM and used it to help us diagnose several real-world leaks. The implementation incurs a reasonable overhead for debugging and tuning. Our case studies indicate that the implementation is powerful in guiding programmers with varying code familiarity to find the root causes of several memory leaks---even someone who had not studied a leaking program can quickly find the cause after using LeakChaser's iterative process that infers and checks properties with different levels of semantic information.

Perceptions of ethical problems with scientific journal peer review: an exploratory study.

This article reports the results of an anonymous survey of researchers at a government research institution concerning their perceptions about ethical problems with journal peer review. Incompetent review was the most common ethical problem reported by the respondents, with 61.8% (SE = 3.3%) claiming to have experienced this at some point during peer review. Bias (50.5%, SE = 3.4%) was the next most common problem. About 22.7% (SE = 2.8%) of respondents said that a reviewer had required them to include unnecessary references to his/her publication(s), 17.7% (SE = 2.6%) said that comments from reviewers had included personal attacks, and 9.6% (SE = 2.0%) stated that reviewers had delayed publication to publish a paper on the same topic. Two of the most serious violations of peer review ethics, breach of confidentiality (6.8%, SE = 1.7%) and using ideas, data, or methods without permission (5%, SE = 1.5%) were perceived less often than the other problems. We recommend that other investigators follow up on our exploratory research with additional studies on the ethics of peer review.

Polish parsers, step by step

We present the derivation of a space efficient parser combinator library: the constructed parsers do not keep unnecessary references to the input, produce online results and efficiently handle ambiguous grammars. The underlying techniques can be applied in many contexts where traditionally backtracking is used.We present two data types, one for keeping track of the progress of the search process, and one for representing the final result in a linear way. Once these data types are combined into a single type, we can perform a breadth-first search, while returning parts of the result as early as possible.

AMERICAN LARYNGOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 85TH ANNUAL MEETING

How to Smother an Idea. Address by Dr.Arthur W. Proetz, guest of honor (Dr. Proetz was unable to attend the meeting on account of illness. His address was read by Dr. Bernard McMahon). Dr. Poretz' wide experience as a researcher and editor has led him to the conclusion that more medical articles are published than are necessary. He lists 14 reasons why these articles are written, only four of which in his opinion are strictly in the interest of science. The fault with many papers in the inability of the authors to put their point over. Streamlining is definitely in order. It is important that the author emphasize what he is talking about and what specifically he is contributing. In addition he should avoid talking over the heads of his audience, eliminate unnecessary references to the literature and excessive verbiage. He should state his views and compare them with

Treatment of Lid and Epibulbar Tumors.

The treatment of lid and epibulbar tumors has been well described in various special articles and textbooks, however, a great gap has been filled by Merrill Reeh's concise and well-documented book on the diagnosis and treatment of lid and epibulbar tumors. The book discusses tumor-like lesions as well as tumors. There is a tremendous amount of information compressed in this small readable volume. The style is simple and uncluttered with unnecessary references of authority. The author's wide experience and personal knowledge enables him to clearly present most of the points. The book is not only useful to the experienced ophthalmic surgeon, but the less experienced ophthalmologist will find the book invaluable. The author's discussion of various lesions often includes facts that are well known but frequently taken for granted. There are often many satisfactory methods of treatment for a single problem, but Dr. Reeh has selected one or more well-established

CONGENITAL AND FAMILIAL HEMOLYTIC DISEASE IN CHILDREN

Congenital and familial hemolytic icterus, although familiar to the pediatrician, has still many points of clinical interest which have hitherto been insufficiently investigated. For this reason, we have considered it worth while to publish a few personal observations on this disease made since 1926 in a great number of cases divided among fourteen different families. This article will be limited to a commentary on the clinical features and the transmission of the disease, avoiding all unnecessary references and leaving aside known facts and historical reviews. Our personal experience is too incomplete to allow us to draw definite conclusions on the analysis of results, on the pathogenesis, on the pathologic physiology and, above all, on the therapy of the disease. The condition was first described by Hayem, 1 as splenomegalic icterus; it was investigated by Gilbert and his pupils 2 and was classed as a distinct clinical entity in 1900 by