Recent studies indicate that dual tasks can be performed with a serial or parallel strategy and that the parallel strategy is preferred even if this implies performance costs. The present study investigates the hypothesis that parallel processing is favored because it requires less mental effort compared to serial processing. A serial or parallel processing strategy was induced in a sample of 2...

As multimedia applications with real-time constraints rapidly invade today’s desktops, it becomes increasingly important for the operating system to provide robust resource allocation mechanisms for both multimedia and traditional best-effort workloads. We present a flexible CPU scheduling policy that adjusts the CPU proportion allocated to each application class using recent history as a feedb...

Video components have become an important part of many popular Internet services, and at an aggregated level they are now a dominant service type in terms of generated traffic volume. Many of these services are provided from content providers utilizing the best effort part of an Internet service. In this paper we provide an introduction to the technical evolutions in this area and also present ...

This paper focuses on bridging the gap between theory and practice in the management of host CPU and link resources for real-time communication. Using our implementation of real-time channels, a paradigm for real-time communication in packet-switched networks, we illustrate the tradeoff between resource capacity and channel admissibility, which determines the number and type of real-time channe...

Effort expenditure has an aversive connotation and it can lower hedonic feelings. In this study, we explored the electrophysiological correlates of the complex interplay of reward processing with cost anticipation. To this aim, healthy adult participants performed a gambling task where the outcome (monetary reward vs. no-reward) and its expectancy were manipulated on a trial by trial basis whil...

In this paper, we seek answer to the question: can a wireless sensing system with energy harvesting power supplies perform as well as the one with conventional power supplies? Conventional sensing systems with deterministic energy sources usually employ uniform sampling. However, due to the stochastic nature of the energy harvested from the ambient environment, uniform sampling is usually infea...

Several best management practices (BMPs) have been implemented through Water Quality Management Plans (WQMPs) in the West Fork Watershed of Trinity River Basin in Texas, USA, where nonpoint source pollution is a serious concern. Major sources of pollution are sediment erosion and nutrients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the long-term impact of implementation of WQMPs on nonpoint s...

Existing specification-based testing techniques often generate a comprehensive test suite to cover diverse combinations of test-relevant aspects. Such a test suite can be prohibitively expensive to execute exhaustively due to its large size. A pragmatic strategy often adopted in practice, called test-once, is to identify certain particular conditions from the specification and to test each such...

A study examined whether word processing amplifies writing performance and whether it restructures the process of writing. Sixteen college students wrote a short essay in a single session on either a word processor or in longhand. The quality of the essays was assessed by trained judges who rated their content and style. Text analysis methods were also employed to corroborate the subjective rat...

When reaching goals, organisms must simultaneously meet the overarching goal of conserving energy. According to the law of least effort, organisms will select the means associated with the least effort. The mechanisms underlying this bias remain unknown. One hypothesis is that organisms come to avoid situations associated with unnecessary effort by generating a negative valence toward the stimu...