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Love brings hope to Next Act Theatre's 'Grace'
When the lights come up on Craig Wright's "Grace" - now at Next Act Theatre, under David Cecsarini's direction - a man is holding a gun to his head, having just murdered the woman and man sprawled nearby. We can guess what happened with this love triangle. But how? And why?
With the whodunit out of the way, "Grace" tries to answer those questions by taking us back three months and starting over. During the ensuing two hours, we'll move forward in time toward that climactic scene with which the play began. »Read Full Article
Eat words: Edible Books Show at Woodland Pattern on April 6
Maybe you like to chew on what you've read. Woodland Pattern Book Center, 720 E. Locust St., is having its annual Edible Books Show on April 6, a display of book-related works made of food.
Families, students, chefs and others still can submit entries by calling the bookstore to reserve spots. »Read Full Blog Post
Foodie things to do this week in Milwaukee
Fine foods
That aroma in the air might be spring. On the other hand, it might be from this week's tasty food-related events. »Read Full Article


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An ice-binding protein from an Antarctic sea ice bacterium
An Antarctic sea ice bacterium of the Gram-negative genus Colwellia, strain SLW05, produces an extracellular substance that changes the morphology of growing ice. The active substance was identified as a ∼25-kDa protein that was purified through its affinity for ice. The full gene sequence was determined and was found to encode a 253-amino acid protein with a calculated molecular mass of 26 350 Da. The predicted amino acid sequence is similar to predicted sequences of ice-binding proteins recently found in two species of sea ice diatoms and a species of snow mold. A recombinant ice-binding protein showed ice-binding activity and ice recrystallization inhibition activity. The protein is much smaller than bacterial ice-nucleating proteins and antifreeze proteins that have been previously described. The function of the protein is unknown but it may act as an ice recrystallization inhibitor to protect membranes in the frozen state.
- sea ice
- bacterium
- ice-binding protein
- Colwellia
Sea ice is the home of numerous species of bacteria (Bowman et al., 1997, 1998; Staley & Gosink, 1999; Brown & Bowman, 2001; Deming, 2002; Junge et al., 2002; Brinkmeyer et al., 2003; Groudieva et al., 2004; Auman et al., 2006). The ability to survive at temperatures as low as −20°C is a prerequisite for life in sea ice (Thomas & Dieckmann, 2002) and living bacteria have been observed in the liquid phase of sea ice at temperatures as low as −15°C (Junge et al., 2001). Among the many adaptations that have been described in polar psychrophiles (summarized by Walker et al., 2006), only a few have been associated with survival in sea ice. One such mechanism is thought to be secretion of extrapolymeric substances that accumulate in brine pockets in sea ice and help to preserve a liquid environment (Krembs et al., 2002). Another potential freezing tolerance mechanism is ice recrystallization inhibition (RI) activity (the ability to prevent the formation of larger grains of ice at the expense of smaller grains), which is thought to protect membranes from freezing injury. RI activity has been found in a number of freezing-tolerant soil bacteria (Walker et al., 2006; Wilson et al., 2006) and Antarctic lake bacteria (Gilbert et al., 2004). Although proteins with RI activity have been described in a number of cold-hardy plants (Smallwood et al. 1999; Griffith et al., 2005), little is known about the proteins responsible for bacterial RI activity. We isolated an Antarctic sea ice bacterium that produces an extracellular protein that causes the development of facets on growing ice crystals, a phenomenon that is usually associated with RI activity (e.g. Griffith & Yaish, 2004). This bacterium provided an opportunity to investigate the nature of bacterial RI proteins. Here we describe the gene encoding this protein and show that it is similar to genes encoding ice-binding proteins (IBPs) found in a snow mold and sea ice diatoms.
Materials and methods
Sampling was conducted on winter sea ice on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula (65.187°S, 65.610°W) on 11 September 2002 on Southern Ocean Globec cruise LMG-02-05 (Hofmann et al., 2002). Water samples were obtained with a sterile 50-mL conical centrifuge tube (Falcon) using aseptic techniques from seawater infiltrating the snow on a ∼10-m-diameter pack ice floe. Temperatures within the flooded snow ranged between −1.7 and −1.8°C. Samples were immediately placed into 0–2°C darkened incubators until the ship reached Punta Arenas, Chile, and were then shipped to the Desert Research Institute (DRI) on ice (0°C). At DRI, samples were stored at 0–3°C until used. Chilled agar plates of marine broth (MB) 2216 medium (Difco) were inoculated with serial dilutions of the samples and incubated at 0°C (range −1 to +2°C). About 200 individual heterotrophic colonies were streaked three times and then individual colonies from the streaks were transferred to liquid MB, in which they were subsequently maintained. The isolates, consisting of mostly bacteria and a few fungi, were also frozen in glycerol at −80°C for longer term storage. The ∼200 isolates were placed in 96-well plates and incubated at 0–3°C with shaking. Growth rates were determined by measuring the absorbance at 660 nm every 12 h for 13 days using a Molecular Devices, Spectramax Plus plate reader. Twenty isolates with the highest growth rates were selected for further characterizations.
Ice-binding activity and recrystallization inhibition activity
Ice-binding activity was assayed with ice single crystals, i.e. ice crystals having a single crystallographic orientation, whose flat surfaces (basal planes) are perpendicular to the ice c-axis. The growth of such crystals was examined in the solutions to be tested (Raymond, 2000). The development of irregular, faceted fingers (dendrites) on the crystal edges and pits and other irregularities on the basal plane are indications of binding of an impurity to the crystal faces (Buckley, 1951).
RI activity of a solution was assayed by flash freezing 3-μL drops with a liquid-nitrogen-cooled glass slide (Raymond & Fritsen, 2001). The frozen drops were kept at subzero temperatures and periodically examined with a microscope to observe recrystallization
Ice-binding protein purification
At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, supernatants of the spent culture medium of 17 of the 20 cold-growing isolates were screened for the presence of IBPs with the above-described ice-binding assay. The isolate with the greatest activity was selected for further study.
IBP was purified from the culture medium supernatant by exploiting the IBP's affinity for ice (Raymond & Fritsen, 2001) using three freeze–thaw cycles. In each cycle, the sample was adjusted to an osmolality of c. 300 mOsm kg−1 and frozen overnight in 500-mL centrifuge bottles at c. −15°C. The bottles were centrifuged upside down to expel brine and impurity proteins and then thawed at room temperature. The purified sample was confirmed to have ice-pitting activity. Purity was checked with two-dimensional (2D) electrophoresis with SYPRO ruby staining at the Proteomics Center, University of Nevada, Reno. De novo sequencing of peptides from the spot of interest was done by tandem MS/MS at the Molecular Structure Facility, University of California, Davis, as described previously (Janech et al., 2006). Many attempts to amplify products from the bacterial DNA using degenerate primers based on these peptides were made without success.
DNA was prepared with a Promega DNA kit and shotgun sequenced in one run by 454 Life Sciences (Branford, CT) as described (Margulies et al., 2005), yielding 218 000 DNA fragments of about 100 bp each. Fragments corresponding to the MS peptides, and other overlapping fragments, were found using tblastn and blastn and assembled with bioedit (http://www.mbio.ncsu.edu/BioEdit/page2.html). The sequence was confirmed by PCR amplification and sequencing.
The 16S rRNA gene was amplified and sequenced with universal primers (9bF, 5′-GRGTTTGATCCTGGCTCAG-3′; 519uF, 5′-CAGCMGCCGCGGTAATAC-3′; 1512uR, 5′-ACGGHTACCTTGTTACGACTT-3′). The 16S rRNA gene sequence was confirmed and extended to full length with the above described 454 DNA fragments. Identification of the start and end of the 16S rRNA gene was based on the start and end signals of the 16S rRNA gene of Escherichia coli K-12 (accession no. U00096).
Molecular mass and pI of the predicted protein were predicted with protein calculator v3.2 (http://www.scripps.edu/~cdputnam/protcalc.html). Signal peptides were predicted with SignalP (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/SignalP/).
Expression of recombinant IBP
The IBP gene was amplified by PCR with primers 5′-ATGAAAACCTTAATAAGCAATTCGAAAAAAGTA-3′ and 5′-GTTATAGAGGAGCTTCTTCATATTGCTC-3′. The resulting 760-bp product was inserted in the pEXP-NT/TOPO vector (Invitrogen), which was then transformed into One-Shot competent E. coli cells (Invitrogen). Plasmids were purified from several clones with a Wizard Plus SV miniprep kit (Promega) and sequenced. A plasmid in which the IBP insert had the correct orientation and reading frame with respect to an N-terminal His tag was then incubated with the reaction mixture of the Expressway cell-free expression system (Invitrogen) for 4–6 h at c. 30°C. The supernatant from the reaction mixture (100 μL) was mixed with 100 μL water, and in some cases 5 μL 4.0 M NaCl, resulting in a final osmolality of about 600 mOsm kg−1, and then assayed for ice-binding activity as described above. A reaction mixture in which the DNA was replaced with an equal volume of water served as a negative control.
Ice-binding protein distribution and characteristics
Following incubation of the ∼200 isolates of sea ice bacteria at 0–3°C, 17 of the 20 fastest growing isolates were examined for ice-binding activity. Of these, one (strain SLW05) showed relatively strong activity, eight showed very weak activity and the rest showed no activity. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of SLW05 (accession no. DQ788794) was nearly identical (>99.7% identity) to the 16S rRNA gene sequences of several Arctic and Antarctic sea ice bacteria of the Gram-negative genus Colwellia, the closest being Colwellia sp. (accession no. DQ060396) from Arctic sea ice and Colwellia piezophila (accession no. AY771755) from the Arctic. Accordingly, we tentatively identify our isolate as Colwellia sp. SLW05. The Arctic marine sediment bacterium Colwellia psychrerythraea strain 34 H, whose genome has been sequenced (Methe et al., 2005), was one of the more distantly related Colwellia species (97% identity).
Spent culture medium of Colwellia sp. SLW05 cells contained a substance that caused growing ice to develop pits on the ice basal plane and irregularly faceted dendrites on the crystal edges (Fig. 1a and b). Ice growing in pure culture medium does not show these features (Fig. 1c). In addition, spent culture medium has RI activity (Fig. 2), i.e. an ability to prevent the growth of large grains of ice at the expense of small grains. The ability to deform the surface of ice and inhibit recrystallization are both indications of the presence of one or more IBPs. Thermal hysteresis, the difference between the freezing point and melting point, of the spent culture medium was <0.1°C, suggesting that no proteins in the spent medium have significant antifreeze activity.
IBP sequence
Ice affinity-purified IBP (prepared from cell-free spent culture medium) was confirmed to have ice-pitting activity and yielded two spots on a 2D electrophoretic gel (Fig. 1d). MS/MS de novo sequencing yielded two peptides [VTLTG(Q/GA)LAK and LSVNTGTTVDGR] for the lower spot (∼24 kDa, pI ∼4.0) and one peptide [(MN)FQYHELVP(AR/VK)] for the upper spot (∼53 kDa, pI ∼3.7). None of these sequences was found in the C. psychrerythraea 34 H genome (accession no. NC_003910). The two peptides from the lower spot weakly matched portions of an IBP-like domain in a hypothetical protein in the genome of Shewanella denitrificans (IYLTGGAQAK_ and ITVNTGASVNGR of accession no. YP_562921). The IBP domain of this protein was previously shown to be similar to IBPs from Antarctic sea ice diatoms and cold-adapted fungi (Janech et al., 2006). Attempts to use this sequence information to obtain the Colwellia DNA sequence by PCR were unsuccessful, and prompted us to sequence the whole genome by the 454 method (Margulies et al., 2005). Several Colwellia sp. SLW05 DNA fragments from the 454 sequence data matched the two peptide sequences from the lower spot, and by assembly of overlapping sequences were found to be closely located. With these sequences and other overlapping sequences, an ORF was identified that contained both peptide sequences (accession no. DQ788793; Fig. 3). The sequence was confirmed by PCR amplification and sequencing. No DNA fragments matching the sequence of the upper spot were found.
The ORF consists of 759 nucleotides encoding 253 amino acids. The calculated molecular mass and pI were 26 350 Da and 4.61, respectively, in approximate agreement with the lower spot in Fig. 1(d). The reason for the lower observed pI (4.0) is unclear but it may be a result of phosphorylation of Ser, Thr or Tyr residues. The closeness of the apparent and predicted sizes of the protein suggest that it has little or no carbohydrate or lipid moieties. The protein appeared to have a 27-residue secretory signal, which is consistent with its presence in the spent culture medium. As was hinted at by the MS/MS peptides, the Colwellia IBP was very similar to several previously identified IBPs and hypothetical proteins with full IBP-like domains from a wide variety of organisms, including sea ice bacteria, a sea ice diatom and a snow mold. Representative sequences with 40–61% identities and 59–75% similarities to the Colwellia sequence are shown in Fig. 4.
To confirm that the gene encodes an ice-binding protein, the gene was expressed in an E. coli cell-free expression system. Reaction mixtures containing the IBP expression vector had ice-binding activity as shown by the development of irregular faceting on the edges of the crystals and pitting on the basal plane, whereas the negative controls did not induce such features (Fig. 5a). In addition, the reaction mixture had RI activity whereas the control did not (Fig. 5b). These results confirm that the IBP gene encodes an ice-binding protein, and they also strongly suggest that the ice-binding activity and RI activity of the spent culture medium (Figs 1 and 2) are due to the IBP. As the expression system can produce only simple proteins, these results show that the IBP does not require a lipid or carbohydrate moiety for activity.
Homologs of a domain in the Colwellia sp. SLW05 IBP (VWIMQISGNLNQANAKRVTL) were found to be encoded in three other sequences in the Colwellia sp. SLW05 genome (with predicted amino acid lengths of 105, 121 and 303 residues). These sequences did not closely match any proteins in the databases, although weak matches (∼30% identity) were found for some hypothetical proteins of unknown function in the sea ice bacterium Psychromonas ingrahamii (accession nos. ZP_01349491, ZP_01349009 and ZP_01349976).
Cold-adapted bacteria produce a number of proteins that interact with ice, including several ice-nucleating proteins (INPs) with typical sizes of 120–180 kDa (Gurian-Sherman & Lindow 1993; Kawahara, 2002), and several antifreeze proteins (AFPs), i.e. proteins that noncolligatively depress the freezing point (Table 1). The Colwellia sp. IBP is much smaller than the INPs and AFPs, and unlike some of them has little or no lipid or carbohydrate moiety.
|Mol. wt
|Pseudomonas putida
|Arctic rhizobacterium
|Xu et al. (1998); Muryoi et al. (2004)
|Marinomonas primoryensis
|Antarctic saline lake
|Uncharacterized protein
|(Gilbert et al. 2004, 2005)
|Pseudomonas fluorescens
|Antarctic soil
|Uncharacterized protein
|Kawahara et al. (2004)
|Moraxella sp.
|Antarctic soil
|No INA
|Yamashita et al. (2002)
|Flavobacterium xanthum
|Antarctic soil
|Uncharacterized protein
|Kawahara et al. (2007)
↵* INA, ice nucleating activity; RIA, recrystallization inhibition activity.
† P. Davies, pers. commun.
The resemblance of the Colwellia IBP to the IBPs of sea ice diatoms and a snow mold raise the question of whether the eukaryotic IBPs were acquired from bacteria by horizontal gene transfer (HGT). One argument in favor of HGT is the finding of 'restricted occurrence' (Doolittle, 2002), in which a gene restricted to a small set of organisms in one domain is also found in a small set of organisms from a different domain. The IBPs seem to satisfy this criterion because among the hundreds of organisms whose genomes have been fully sequenced, IBP and IBP-like genes are found in only about a dozen that are irregularly scattered over the three domains of life. On the other hand, a rule of thumb for HGT is that amino acid sequence identities should be at least 60% (Doolittle, 2002), which is well above the 40–42% identities between the Colwellia IBP and the eukaryotic IBPs. Thus, independent evolution of the IBPs cannot be ruled out. IBP sequences from a greater number of organisms will be needed to determine to what degree HGT is involved in their appearance.
Other IBPs and IBP-like proteins that resemble Colwellia IBP are described by Janech et al. (2006). The latter include four prokaryotic hypothetical proteins of unknown function that contain an entire IBP-like domain. Curiously, the non-IBP parts of these proteins appear unrelated. None of these four prokaryotes is noted for being cold-hardy (although related species are well known to occur in sea ice) and so their IBP-like proteins may have functions unrelated to freezing tolerance. The function of a large hypothetical protein (68 kDa) from the Antarctic sea ice bacterium Psychroflexus torquis that contains a full IBP domain (accession no. ZP_01254171; submitted by Bowman et al.; 26% identity to Colwellia IBP) is also unknown. Identifying the functions of these proteins may elucidate the origins of IBPs.
It is also interesting that an IBP gene does not occur in the genome of C. psychrerythraea 34 H, a species isolated from presumably ice-free Arctic marine sediments. However, C. psychrerythraea has also been isolated from sea ice (Bowman et al. 1997; Groudieva et al. 2004). Similarly, hypothetical IBPs are present in the genomes of the Antarctic sea ice bacteria Polaribacter irgensii (submitted by A. Murray & J. Staley) and Psychromonas ingrahamii (submitted by A. Copeland et al.), but not in the genomes of the Antarctic marine bacteria Actinobacterium PHSC20C1 (accession no. NZ_AAOB00000000) or Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TAC125 (accession nos. NC_007481 and NC_007482). Together, these results suggest that the IBP has a role related to survival in an icy environment.
Because Colwellia IBP has RI activity, it may serve to protect bacterial membranes from the damaging effects of ice recrystallization. The IBP of the sea ice diatom Navicula glaciei is similar to the Colwellia IBP in sequence (40% identity, 59% similarity) and size, and both IBPs have secretory peptides and are found in the extracellular medium. Semipure Navicula IBP has RI activity and has been shown to increase the freeze–thaw survival of both Navicula glaciei cells and human red blood cells (Raymond & Janech, 2003; Kang & Raymond, 2004). In the latter case, the greatest protective effect was observed under conditions that favored recrystallization, suggesting that the protective effect was due to inhibition of recrystallization. RI activity has been associated with freezing tolerance in several species of soil bacteria (Wilson et al., 2006), and has been found to be a characteristic of numerous species of Antarctic lake bacteria (Gilbert et al., 2004) and Antarctic mosses (Doucet et al., 2000). The presence of IBPs in spent culture medium and the fact that they have secretory peptides raises the possibility that they function extracellularly, perhaps in the confines of brine pockets in sea ice.
Other or additional functions of the Colwellia IBP cannot be ruled out. For example, IBPs might help in some way to preserve brine pockets in sea ice, which have been shown to be critical to survival (Krembs et al., 2002). IBPs might also help cells to stick to sea ice (Raymond, 2000), which may provide a more favorable environment than the underlying water. Experimental evidence of such binding has recently been reported by Wilson et al. (2006) who found an RI-active soil bacterium that was about 30 times more likely to be embedded in growing ice than the RI-inactive E. coli.
It should be noted that about half of the sea ice isolates examined showed no signs of IBP activity, so an IBP is not necessarily essential for survival. For example, no IBP-like gene was found in the genome of Psychrobacter arcticus 273–4 (accession no. NC_007204) isolated from a 20 000–40 000-year-old Siberian permafrost core. It is possible, however, that one IBP-producing species of bacteria may provide protection for other species that do not produce an IBP, as was found to be the case with RI-positive soil bacteria (Walker et al., 2006).
We thank Betsy Kreidberg for culturing the sea ice bacterial strains used in this study. We thank Dr. Jae-Shin Kang for screening isolates for IBP activity and for additional Colwellia sp. SLW05 culturing. We thank Kathy Schegg of the Nevada Proteomics Center for 2D electrophoresis, the staff of the Nevada Genomics Center for sequencing of PCR products and Dr Chris Ross for assistance with Blast software. The latter three were each supported by an NIH IMBRE grant, which is gratefully acknowledged. This research was mainly supported with resources from Nevada's NASA EPCCoR cooperative agreement (NCC5-583) and partially supported by a grants from the National Science Foundation (OPP0088000 to J.A.R. and OPP9910098 and OPP9910098 and OPP0421514 to C.F.). We thank Drs M. Janech, B. Hedlund, and F. Van Breukelen for helpful suggestions and two anonymous reviewers for critical readings of the manuscript.
Editor: Gary King
- © 2007 Federation of European Microbiological Societies Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A man accused of firing a rifle randomly from his boat at a Jacksonville, Fla., marina, told police a combination of beer and broken heart made him do it.
The arrest report said Wayland told arresting officers he was upset over his relationship with a woman and had been drowning his sorrows with about 16 beers before he decided to squeeze off a few rounds into the air and in the general direction of the bridge.
Wayland responded to demands for his surrender by making a rude gesture at the officers onshore, but then reconsidered and rowed ashore without his weapon. He was arrested on charges of firing a gun while under the influence, The Florida Times-Union said.
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Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
Albuquerque, US
Sat 1 to Sun 9 Oct 2016
In this spin on the fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel are now bounty hunters who track and kill witches all over the world. As the fabled Blood Moon approaches, the siblings encounter a new form of evil that might hold a secret to their past.
Countries credited for this film as originating countries: Germany, United States
This is a subevent of: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
Website: http://
Visit the Official Website


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One of the earliest symptoms of heart failure is shortness of breath.
Your heart can't function well enough to pump the blood out of your
heart, and this causes blood to back up in the lung blood vessels. Fluid
then leaks from your blood vessels into the air sacs in your lungs. This
makes it hard for oxygen to get into the blood, causing shortness of
You may experience breathlessness during exertion, such as when climbing
a flight of stairs, or at rest—even at night when sleeping.
You can do several things to help yourself breathe more easily:
Shortness of breath can be a serious problem. If you notice a sudden
worsening or you feel breathless while at rest when you never have
before, call your doctor immediately.
Well Ahead Newsletter
Main Line Health
Copyright 2016 Main Line Health
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Since the Internet is filled with endless possibilities for purchasing tons of stuff, you can imagine that it is not that difficult to find a cheap laptop online. You can just Google these 3 words and you will get a huge list of website that may (or may not help you). Or, you can read this article as an alternative and we'll give you some tips on where to find what you are looking for.
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It's important for you to know that these laptops are not brand new. They are refurbished. This website belongs to a shop in Florida. They have almost 15 years experience in selling refurbished laptops and they have shipped thousands of machines in over 70 countries worldwide. Their laptops have been refurbished by a special team of experienced technicians. Just to reassure you of their professionalism, on their website you can read some customer testimonials, words which were written by people that have dealt with this company in the past and they are satisfied with the products and services.
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By accessing www.newegg.com you will find some interesting and attractive offers. On the left side of the web page, you will find some useful search categories and criteria which will help you find exactly what you're looking for. You can choose between different manufacturers like Asus, Toshiba, Sony VAIO, Acer America, Lenovo, HP, Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, Samsung and MSI Computer. You can also choose the type of processor you like, the screen size and even the size of the HDD. You have different price ranges available so just choose the interval that fits your pocket best. To give you an example, you can buy the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q715 for a price lower than $1000. On other websites you will find this laptop at double the price. This laptop has an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 which operates at a speed of 2.53 GHz. The screen is 17 inches long which mean this laptop is an excellent desktop replacement. You have 4 GB of RAM available and combined with the processor should give you enough speed and power for multitasking. The video card is one top of the line components because it's the nVidia GeForce 9800M GTS which has 1 GB of dedicated video memory. This means you can play some top of the line games because this is exactly what this laptop was designed for. The Toshiba Qosmio series has some great machines for true gamers out there. You also have other cool features like an integrated webcam, 5-in-1 bridge media adapter, an Express Card slot and a DVD burner.
www.studentcomputers.co.uk is an United Kingdom website where you can also find some neat offers for laptops, accessories, computer, hardware, software, peripherals and even batteries. You also have the possibility to choose between new and refurbished laptops and netbooks. You can even buy new laptops from well known and respected manufacturers at good prices. For example, you can buy the Acer eMachines E525 for a price as low as 280 pounds. You have an Intel Celeron processor and 1 GB of RAM. The display is 15.6 inches long and an Intel GMA X4500 graphics card. Other features are the 5-in-1 card reader, 2 USB port, 1 external VGA port, a Kensington Lock slot and an optical DVD burner. You have one year warranty for this unit. The hard drive has a 160 GB capacity and the battery will last about 2.5 hours on a full charge. You even have a form on the same page as each laptop model and you can ask questions about this particular laptop model.
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2 Comments
I am interested to buy lenovo laptop computer from you. pls, inform me how you can send the laptop to me in Papua New Guinea.
A. Pani
A great website that offers great laptop deals is Save on Laptops. Their customer service team were very helpful in recommending a laptop based on what I wanted and needed.


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Latin America News
Abortion Requests in Latin America Rise After Zika Warnings, Study Says
Requests for abortion pills have increased significantly in seven Latin American countries after Zika-related health warnings were issued there, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine . After the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) issued a health alert in
AP PHOTOS: Editor Selections From Latin America , Caribbean
AP PHOTOS: In editor selections from Latin American and the Caribbean, a Bolivian marching band dresses up in Star Wars costumes, a slain Mexican priest is buried in Veracruz and Rio residents hold the Olympic Dog Games
Pope Francis Makes Latin America Visit About 'Most Fragile ... Most Vulnerable'
At the start of a weeklong visit to his native continent, Pope Francis arrived to a red carpet reception at Quito's main airport, where Ecuador's socialist president Rafael Correa greeted him on the tarmac. But as the pope's motorcade proceeded into the city, many along the sidelines voiced their
Masters, Latin America team up
Using the blueprint from its successful launch of an amateur event in Asia, the Masters -- along with the R&A and the United States Golf Association -- announced a foray into Latin America on Wednesday that will reward the winner of an amateur tournament there with a spot at Augusta National. The
U.S. Stands Behind N.S.A. Spying on Latin America , Cites Terrorism as Reason for It
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry defended the National Security Agency's surveillance program targeting Latin America while on a South American tour. During a news conference in Bogota on Monday, Kerry cited recent terrorist threats to U.S. embassies and the security changes brought about by 9/11
Why Latin American Countries Scored a Major Victory Over Internet Domain Names
The two South American nations filed complaints against Patagonia Inc., a California-based clothing company.
Why Are Latin American Countries Saying Yes to Snowden?
The presidents of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia have publicly expressed interest in granting asylum to former CIA analyst Edward Snowden who is wanted by the United States on charges of revealing classified government information. On Friday WikiLeaks, the organization that publishes private, and
What Egypt Can Learn From Latin America's Revolutions
At 6 p.m. local time Wednesday, the Egyptian army overthrew Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, in response to nearly a week of violent protests and social unrest. Egyptian defense minister Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi announced that the military would temporarily


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Curvy Girl Fitness Bootcamp
My name is Shante and I offer fitness bootcamps to plus size women all over Tampa Bay. I would like to share my passion for dancing and fitness to women who are serious about losing weight and getting in shape. I offer many boot camps throughout the week as well healthy meals plans that will guarantee to help get your swag back in no time!
Boot camps are located in different locations, indoor and outdoor. So much you'll never want to miss a session! All you'll need to bring is water bottle and towel to each session. Boot camps are Monday through Friday. All moms, friends and family are welcome.
LET'S GET IN SHAPE THE FUN WAY!!!! With Shante
- Date and Time
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All People's Life Center
6105 E Sligh Ave
Tampa, FL
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Dr. Doris Bitler Davis works with undergraduate and graduate students on issues related to animal learning and cognition. One area of focus involves understanding animal communication systems and their evolutionary relationship to human language. Subjects include domesticated species such as goats (Capra hircus), chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), and dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). A related interest is in more clearly identifying, describing, and mitigating cognitive dysfunction syndrome in companion animals. Other lines of research include: 1) the pedagogy of psychology (the empirical evaluation of methods for improving student learning and retention), 2) food choices and eating behavior in humans and animals, and 3) anomalistic psychology (the study of extraordinary beliefs, behaviors, and experiences).
Dr. Brielmaier Sontag is able to serve as an MA thesis or dissertation committee member for CBN students whose research has a behavioral neuroscience focus. She is also involved with research on online teaching and learning. Current studies are investigating the role of course design in student motivation and performance, and student engagement in an online vs. face-to-face physiological psychology course.
Dr. Flinn's research focuses on the role of metals in both behavior and physiology. Her research has emphasized the roles of zinc, copper and iron in learning and memory and also in macular degeneration. Her research currently focuses on two specific aspects of metals in behavior, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and the extinction of learned fears. Her lab is developing genetically modified mice which model late onset Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of the disease. In Alzheimer's mice, increased zinc causes an impairment in memory, which may be due to decreased copper. Current studies are examining memory, affiliative behaviors and circadian rhythms and the role of inflammation and zinc transporters in AD mice. The work on extinction has shown that increased levels of zinc, which may act through reducing copper levels, lead to an inability to extinguish a learned fear normally, a possible factor in PTSD.
My work examines two vital components of human cognition: social perception; and how we understand our physical world through the representation of time and space – roughly categorized, people and time/space. My goal is to uncover the neural mechanisms that underlie our understanding of our social and physical worlds using the tools of social and cognitive neuroscience, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), source-localized electroencephalography (EEG), and more recently, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).


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Yeah, this is totally the direction Apple is going. Great article, Gregg, but the news makes me very sad. (BTW, we're an IT security start up.)
Gregg KeizerShared publicly -
iFixit drops repair score of new 21.5-in. iMac from 7 (out of 10) to just 3 ... practically impossible to upgrade RAM after purchase.
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Here is the short interest as of today with BKE:Short Interest (Shares Short) 8,171,800 Days To Cover (Short Interest Ratio) 12.3 Short Percent of Float view Naked Short Selling List - NEW view Short Interest - Prior 8,366,300 Short % Increase / Decrease -2.32 It is among the highest short interest rate. Above 3 is considered very high, BKE is 12. Most short will cover if stock move ablove 200 days MA for three trading days, which is $31.49. If we can hold above that for next week, next stop is $37. Don't forget that most shorts came in when they predict BKE would have an aweful back to school season which proves to be wrong, they will cover soon since they cannot afford to wait a Christmas surprise.
sorry, but with BKE you seem to get "perma-shorts", bit odd, even scary at times. some arb angle, preselling shares that will be granted, kinda hard to figure with such a nice track record, value metrics. Yo Adrienne, S&P, Zacks, GS, all seem to be trying to help shortie but he's still here. Weird.http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/shortinterests.aspx?symbol=BKE&selected=BKE


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Engadget reports that MIT media lab team was eventually successful in creation of a camera with a "shutter speed" of one trillion exposures per second thus enabling it to record light itself traveling from one point to another. This has been achieved through use of a heavily modified Streak Tube which is normally used to intensify photons into electron streams. The team could snap a single image of a laser as it passed through a soda bottle.
To create its slow-motion film in the video, the team had to replicate the experiment several hundreds of times. The stop-motion footage shows how light bounces through the bottle, collecting inside the opaque cap before dispersing. Although the revolutionary snapper may have created fastest shutter but the long time it takes to process the images have earned it the nickname of the "the world's slowest fastest camera."
[ Via Engadget ]
This entry was posted by Skipper on December 13, 2011 at 2:33 pm, and is filed under Gadgets, US News, World News. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.
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Charleston Southern's Will Hunt has seen "the good, the bad and the ugly" of Buccaneers football. Hunt technically was a part of CSU's last winning football team, though he redshirted the 2009 season when the Buccaneers won their last four games to finish 6-5. In the next three seasons, Hunt lived a nightmare in terms of success on the gridiron.
WHO: Charleston Southern (6-0) at VMI (1-4)
WHEN: Saturday, 1:30 p.m.
WHERE: Lexington, Va.
In 2010, CSU finished 3-8. Then came the disaster that was the 2011 season, an 0-11 record. In 2012, the Buccaneers started slowly again but rallied to finish at 5-6.
Hunt graduated with a degree in business last May and could have entered the real world to begin his dream of opening an apparel store. However, Hunt had a year of eligibility remaining and decided to work on his Master's degree and play one final season in search of the type of success that he could be proud of.
Midway through the 2013 season, it's safe to say that Hunt, an impressive 6-5, 253-pound defensive end, made a good decision.
Charleston Southern enters Saturday's Big South Conference opener against VMI with a 6-0 record and is ranked nationally (No. 25 among FCS teams) for only the second time in school history.
"It's pretty unbelievable to think we were 0-11 two years ago and now we're undefeated," Hunt said.
"I think back to two years ago and how hard we worked every single day but had nothing to show for it on Saturday. I don't work any harder now than I did then, but that's how the game is.
"Every football team works hard every week, all summer long, but only a few get to enjoy the success. I am trying to enjoy every minute of it. I have learned to appreciate the wins for sure."
Not only is CSU having a good year, but Hunt is having his best season as a college player. He ranks among the leaders in sacks with five in the Big South Conference and is a true leader, according to head coach Jamey Chadwell, on this year's team.
"The guys on this team have tremendous respect for Will because they see how hard he works and how much this means to him," said Chadwell, who helped recruit Hunt to CSU before leaving to become the head coach at North Greenville.
"Here's a young man that could have graduated and said, 'This is enough for me.' He chose to return for one more year because he wanted one more shot. We (the coaching staff) are sure glad he did because he is a tremendous leader for our young football team.
"Some of these young guys, they are 6-0 and they don't know about losing. But Will has seen the worst, and he tells these guys every day to play like it's your last play and enjoy every success you can. You can really see that he is enjoying himself in every practice and in every game."
Hunt has learned over the years not to look too far ahead when it comes to football. As soon as you think you have it under control, the walls can cave in. CSU needs one more victory to clinch a winning season and if the Bucs can win two more games, it will match the total of wins that Hunt experienced in his last three seasons combined. But Hunt maintains a "next play" mentality.
"I don't think about the past anymore and I don't get too caught up in what lies ahead. I just want to play this season as hard as I can and enjoy it as much as I can because I know the end for me is coming," said Hunt. "All the tough things that I went through during those first few years, it made me hungry. I won't lie, it sure feels nice to win, but those losses helped me grow as a player and as a man."


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Richard L. Ganz
Ganz is senior pastor of a growing church in Ottawa, Canada, and president of Ottawa Theological Hall.
20 Controversies That Almost Killed a Church: Paul's Counsel to the Corinthians and the Church Today
Richard L. Ganz$13.99Add Your ReviewRevisits the controversies that threatened the Corinthian church, enabling us to see both the snares to avoid and the goal of godliness to be pursued. Learn More


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2 posts tagged with cinema by mwhybark.
Displaying 1 through 2 of 2.
Genre flick factory!
Has anyone ever attempted to estimate the total number of films made in Hollywood that we today consider film noir? What about other long-lived genres of the high era of the silver screen? [more inside]
The Little Traveling Shot
What is the earliest generally-accepted use in commercial cinema of the following three shots: a lens-based zoom, in or out; a traveling shot using a dolly to follow a scene's protagonist (as in moving from room to room laterally); and a traveling shot using a dolly to effectively create a zoom, in which the framing of the protagonist becomes tighter as a result of a shorter distance to the subject? [more inside]
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|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Dec 21, 1999
|Filing date
|Sep 17, 1998
|Priority date
|Nov 26, 1996
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Geoffrey Owen Blandy, Maher Afif Saba
|Original Assignee
|International Business Machines Corporation
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (8), Non-Patent Citations (4), Referenced by (34), Classifications (10), Legal Events (3)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 08/753,569, filed Nov. 26, 1996 now U.S. Pat. No 5,884,080.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing systems and, more particularly, to software tools and methods for monitoring, modeling, and enhancing system performance.
2. Description of Related Art
To enhance system performance, it is helpful to know which modules within a system are most frequently executed. These most frequently executed modules are referred to as "hot" modules. Within these hot modules, it is also useful to know which lines of code are the most frequently executed. When there is a point in the code where one of two or more branches may be taken, it is useful to know which branch is the mainline path, or the branch most frequently taken, and which branch or branches are the exception branches.
A programmer hoping to improve system performance should focus his or her efforts on improving the performance of the hot modules. Improving the performance of the most frequently executed modules will have the most effect on improving overall system performance. It does not make sense to spend much time improving the performance of modules which are rarely executed, as this will have little, if any, effect on the overall system performance.
A programmer hoping to improve the performance of a module will group the instructions in the mainline branches of the module closely together. Keeping the mainline code packed closely together increases the likelihood of cache hits, since the mainline code is the code that will most likely be loaded into the instruction cache.
Performance tools are used to examine program code to determine the most frequently executed modules and instructions in a system. Performance tools may be implemented in hardware or software. Hardware performance tools are usually built into the system. Software performance tools may be built into the system or added at a later point in time. Performance tools implemented in software are especially useful in systems, such as personal computer systems, that do not contain many, if any, built-in hardware performance tools.
Some prior art software performance tools use an interrupt-driven method to monitor performance. Typically, the system is interrupted at set time intervals. At each interrupt, the performance tool samples the code that is running and adds data into a log.
There are several problems with this prior art approach. Because the code is sampled once per interrupt, the programmer never sees any data pertaining to code that is "disabled for interrupts" (i.e. code where interrupts are masked). The interrupt that stops the system and allows the performance monitoring to take place can never occur during code that is disabled for interrupts.
Another problem with this prior art approach is that the storage area quickly fills with data. This means the performance tool can only be run for a very short period of time, or the tool must stop the system to unload the data into another space, such as to disk. Stopping the system is very intrusive, as this type of stop would not occur during normal operations. Thus, stopping the system to unload performance data actually affects the system performance of the system that is being monitored.
Furthermore, sampling once per interrupt gives a ragged view of the performance data. It is difficult to accurately understand what is happening in the system because the performance data is collected at random points. There is no data collected pertaining to a sequence of instructions running in the consecutive order in which they were intended to execute.
Another type of prior art software performance tool keeps track of sequences of instructions by logging every instruction as it executes. However, there are two problems associated with this type of prior art approach. First, the storage area fills with data even more quickly than with the interrupt-driven performance tool. Therefore, this type of tool can only be run for very short periods of time, or the data must be unloaded to another storage area so often that the tool becomes prohibitively intrusive. Second, there is a danger that the data collected will not be representative of the system as a whole. For example, a branch instruction that can take either path one or path two, may take path one during the time the performance tool is monitoring the system. Thus, to the programmer, it will appear that path one is the most frequently executed path. This may or may not be true. It could be that path two is much more frequently executed, but because the performance tool is run for such a short period of time, and because the branch happened to follow path one during the short time the system was monitored, the programmer will be misled.
The recent growth in multi-processor systems has created another problem for both types of prior art performance tools. Prior art performance tools usually use one storage area to collect performance data, regardless of the number of processors in the system. Thus, in a multi-processor system, some type of serialization must be used to ensure that more than one processor is not writing to the storage area at the same time. In addition, this may lead to inaccuracies in the performance data. While one processor is writing its performance data, a second processor may be waiting to write its performance data, and this waiting time will be reflected in the second processor's performance data. This wait time is not part of normal processing.
Another problem with many prior art performance tools implemented in software is that they require changes to be made to both operating system and application code. All code must be recompiled before any performance monitoring takes place. Thus, the changed and recompiled code is the code that is actually monitored, rather than the actual code that eventually becomes part of the final software product.
Consequently, it would be desirable to have a minimally-intrusive system performance tool that would not require a large memory area to store data and that would accurately depict performance for both single and multi-processor systems. It would be desirable to have such a performance tool monitor system performance with minimal changes to the operating system and no changes to application code that is being monitored. In addition, it would be desirable to have such a tool both identify the hot modules within a system and identify the mainline code paths through the system.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a system and method for monitoring system performance by sampling instructions in a burst mode, rather than once per interrupt. A burst mode may be configurable for a number of instructions per burst. Furthermore, these instructions are counted using a dynamic tree structure, rather than a log, which results in substantial savings in storage. With a dynamic tree structure, it is very rare that the performance monitoring process will have to be stopped to unload performance data. The present invention requires minimal changes to the operating system, and no changes to application code. No recompilation is necessary to use the present invention. In addition, the present invention provides a system and method for monitoring code segments that are disabled for interrupts, and thus are difficult, if not impossible, to monitor using prior art performance tools.
In a symmetrical multi-processor embodiment, the burst sampling is active on all processors at the same time. Each processor has its own dynamic tree structure so that the particular instructions executing in different processors may be examined. Thus, it is easy to detect bottlenecks in the system due to a particular instruction or set of instructions being executed on only one processor. Also, no serialization scheme is necessary for memory access.
It is an advantage of the present invention that the most frequently executed modules and code paths are identified in a manner that is minimally-intrusive to the system as a whole, and uses relatively little storage. It is another advantage of the present invention that even code segments that are disabled for interrupts are monitored. It is a further advantage of the present invention that post-processing tools provide several levels of detail regarding the information stored in the dynamic tree structure.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an information processing system capable of executing the performance monitoring tool of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating how performance monitoring is enabled according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating the method of handling external interrupts according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating the method of single step execution according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the data structures used for storing performance information according to the present invention.
FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the modified radix tree structure according to the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating the method of storing performance data in a radix tree according to the present invention.
FIGS. 8A, 8B and 8C are examples of typical output displayed by the present invention.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an information handling system embodying the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the system includes one or more processors 10. There may be one processor that receives and handles all timer interrupts, or all processors may receive timer interrupts directly. The processors 10 are coupled to system memory 12 via a system bus 14. The system memory 12 consists of random access memory (RAM) which stores the operating system 14, the performance. monitoring tool 16, application programs which are executing 18, and associated data 20. The data 20 consists of system data, application program data, and performance monitoring data. The processors are also connected via the bus 14 to a communication adapter 29 for connecting the information handling system to a data processing network, and an input/output (I/O) manager 22. Also connected to the I/O manager 22 are user input devices, such as a mouse 24 and a keyboard 26, and an output device, such as a display 28 which is used by the system to display user input and system output.
The present invention samples, or monitors, programs as they are executing. The programs being monitored may be of any type, including but not limited to operating system programs, kernel programs, utility programs, and application programs. The system is monitored by sampling instructions in burst mode. Rather than monitoring every instruction, performance monitoring is activated to monitor a small group, or burst, of instructions. This certain number, or burst, of instructions is monitored during a burst interval. The performance monitor keeps track of every instruction as it executes through the use of a modified radix tree, as described below with reference to FIG. 6. The performance monitor does not log the entire instruction, or even the entire address of the instruction, as this would use a large amount of memory. Rather, the performance monitor keeps count of instructions as they run, and stores these counts in the radix tree. After running the performance monitor, a user may view several types of output, each giving different levels of system performance information.
FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating how performance monitoring is initiated. Once a user decides to turn sampling on (step 31), the system obtains a buffer for each processor (step 32). Performance data for each processor is stored in that processor's buffer area. Separate buffers also eliminate the need for a locking system, or serialization of memory, in the performance monitor. No processor has to wait to write its performance data to a shared buffer, thus eliminating inaccuracies due to additional wait time (which would not be present during normal processing) being added to a processor's performance data. In addition, adverse hardware effects, such as cross-invalidation, are eliminated by the use of separate memory areas.
A burst mask is then provided (step 33). In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, the burst mask is implemented as a 32-bit number. Each group of four bits represents one interval, where an interval is a number of instructions to be monitored. A burst, or performance monitoring, interval begins when a performance timer interrupt occurs. A number from zero to fifteen may be entered for each interval, and represents the number of instructions (in thousands) to be counted during that interval. This is explained more fully in FIG. 3. The performance monitor begins counting instructions at the beginning of a burst interval (i.e. when a performance timer interrupt occurs), and stops counting, in most cases, when the burst count for the interval is reached. An entry of zero for a particular interval indicates that the performance monitor is idle during that interval, and thus does not count instructions for that interval. When a performance timer interrupt occurs, the performance monitor will use the next four bits of the burst mask to determine the number of instructions to count during that interval. However, if the next four bits are all zeros, this indicates that the performance monitor should not do anything, and should wait until the next performance timer interrupt occurs to check the next four bits of the burst mask. For example, an interval mask of 40201010 (hexadecimal) would tell the performance monitor to count 4000 instructions in the first interval, remain idle for the second interval, count two thousand instructions in the next interval, and so on.
The single step execution handler and external interrupt handler are then set up (steps 34 and 35). More details regarding the operation of the single step execution handler and external interrupt handler are given in FIGS. 3 and 4. The first level of a shared radix tree structure is allocated (step 36). Every processor in the system has at least a level 0 shared table. The shared table is where data regarding shared code will be stored. Many of the instructions in a system are part of what is referred to as shared code. This is usually kernel or operating system code that is used by other programs. Shared code is loaded into one linear virtual address space. More details regarding the structure of the radix tree and the method used to "walk the tree" are given in FIGS. 6 and 7.
A process table is also allocated for each processor (step 37). When a processor encounters a new process during performance monitoring (a process which is not part of the shared code), a process ID (PID) and address of a new level 0 table (i.e. a new radix tree structure for that process) will be entered into the processor's process table.
Each processor is marked inactive (step 38), which means that the burst count for the processor is set to zero. This keeps a processor from inadvertently storing data in the performance tables before monitoring actually starts. The performance monitoring tool is thus enabled, and is waiting for a timer interrupt (step 39) to initiate performance monitoring.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating the events that take place when an external interrupt (step 41) occurs. Note that in the current embodiment of the present invention, there are two timers, a programmable system timer, and a performance timer specifically dedicated to the performance monitor. The current invention could also be implemented in a system with only one timer. When a timer interrupt occurred, a variable could be checked to determine which type of timer interrupt had occurred.
When an external interrupt occurs (step 41), if the performance monitor is not active (step 42) and this is not a performance timer interrupt (step 43), then normal interrupt processing takes place (step 44). However, if the performance monitor is not active (step 42), but this is a performance timer interrupt (step 43), the next burst interval is set up. The next four bits from the interval mask are used to determine the number of instructions to count in this interval (step 48), and this number is propagated to all processors (step 49). If this number happens to be zero (step 51), this means the performance monitor is idle for this interval, and therefore normal interrupt processing takes place (step 52).
If the burst count is greater than zero (step 51), the single step exception handler is enabled (step 54). In the current embodiment of the invention, only one processor receives timer interrupts, and therefore this processor must wake up all other processors (step 55), and the other processors must then enable single-stepping. In an alternate embodiment, all processors would receive the timer interrupts, and thus step 55 would not be necessary.
Next, the system clock, or system timer interrupt rate is "slowed" for the system (step 56). There are several ways that this can be accomplished. One method is to actually reprogram the system clock to interrupt less frequently, that is to wait a longer time between system timer interrupts. Another method is to allow the system timer interrupts to occur as normal, but to have an interrupt handler that ignores the timer interrupts until a predetermined number have occurred. Note that the system clock is not slowed. The system runs at normal functional speeds. The system timer simply interrupts the system less frequently than it normally would. The reason for this is that, although this method of performance monitoring is relatively non-intrusive, it still takes time to add the instruction counts into the radix tree structure. Slowing the rate of system timer interrupts simply takes this additional time into account and prevents the timer interrupt from constantly occurring while the system is being monitored.
In the current embodiment, when an external interrupt occurs during normal processing, single-stepping may be disabled. In this case, single-stepping must be re-enabled at the interrupt return point (step 57) before normal interrupt processing continues (step 58).
If the external interrupt occurs (step 41) and the performance monitor is already active (step 42), the next step is to determine whether the external interrupt is a performance timer interrupt (step 47). If so, and the performance timer has not interrupted for a pre-determined number of times (step 46), then normal interrupt processing takes place (step 45). If the interrupt is not a performance timer interrupt (step 47), or the performance timer has interrupted for the pre-determined number of times, then single stepping is enabled for the current context (step 50), and normal interrupt processing occurs (step 53).
FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating the events that take place when a single step exception (step 61) occurs. If the performance monitor is not active (step 64), then the single step flag is turned off for the current instruction (step 63) and the interrupt ends (step 62).
If, however, the performance monitor is active (step 64), then the burst count is decremented (step 66). The next step is to determine if the burst counter is equal to zero (step 70). If it is, a determination must be made as to whether the counting phase should be stopped for this interval (steps 68 and 67), or whether the burst count should be forced to remain at one (step 71), so that the performance monitor continues.
This determination is made by looking at whether the code currently being executed is "disabled for interrupt" code (step 69). Disabled for interrupt code is code that does not get interrupted while executing. This means that performance monitoring can never begin during a disabled for interrupt portion of code. Therefore, if a disabled for interrupt section of code is larger than the burst interval, there may be code that is never monitored. To avoid this situation, if the burst count is reached while disabled for interrupt code is executing, the burst count is forced to be one (step 71), and monitoring continues until the disabled code section is complete. This ensures that even code within a large disabled for interrupt code section will be monitored.
If performance monitoring continues (either from step 70 or step 71), the instruction is processed (step 72) and added to the instruction count. Further details of this step are given in FIG. 7. Because some instructions actually cause single stepping to be turned off, each instruction is decoded to see if it is one of these instructions, and if so, single stepping is turned back on (step 73).
FIG. 5 depicts the data structure used to store the performance data for each processor. As shown in FIG. 5, each processor has a buffer area in which performance data is stored. If there are n processors in a system, there are n buffers numbered from 0 to n-1. For example, buffer zero 100 is the buffer area reserved for the first processor in FIG. 5. In buffer zero's header area 102, the current burst count 104 is stored, along with a pointer 106 to buffer one's header 108. Each buffer contains a level zero of shared table 110 and a process table 112. In this example, buffer zero 100 also contains a level one of shared table 114, a level two of shared table 116, a level three of shared table 118, and an overflow level three table 120. Level zero 110, level one 114, level two 116, and level three 118 are actually implemented as levels zero, one, two, and three of a radix tree, with level three being a leaf node. The actual details of the radix tree implementation are shown in FIG. 6. There is also free space 122 which can be used as needed to create more tables. For example, if the performance monitor encounters a new process, a level 0 of a process table for that process will be allocated.
FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the modified radix tree structure of the present invention. When the performance monitor encounters an instruction, it increments that instruction's counter in the radix tree. To find the correct counter to increment, the instruction's four-byte address 140 is used. Byte zero 142 is used as a displacement into level zero 144 of the radix tree. At that point in level zero, a pointer 146 is found which points to level one 150. Byte one 148 of the instruction is used as an index into the level one of radix tree 150. At that point in level one 150 there is a pointer 151 to level two of the radix tree 152. Byte two 154 is used as an index into level two 152. At that point in level two there is a pointer 153 to level three of the radix tree 156.
Level three of a radix tree 156 is also called a leaf node. Actual instruction counts are preferably kept in a leaf node. A leaf node is set up as follows. The first entry, count 158, is the number of different instructions for which data is stored in this leaf node. A count of zero means one instruction, a count of one means two instructions, and so on. After the count field 158, there are one or more index fields 160. In the current implementation, there are 50 index fields. The first index field 160 contains byte three 162 of the first instruction encountered and tracked at this leaf node. A frequency counter 164 corresponds to index 160. The frequency counter 164 contains the number of times the instruction has been encountered. A frequency of zero means the instruction has been encountered once, a frequency of one means the instruction has been encountered twice, and so on.
The leaf node also contains a hint 166. A hint 166 is the array element number of the next instruction immediately following the instruction just counted. For example, a hint of 32 tells the performance monitor to go to the thirty-second index entry in the leaf node. Since most instructions are executed in the same pattern or order, the hint 166 can allow the performance monitor to take a shortcut while walking the radix tree (this will be shown in FIG. 7). The hint is most useful after the code has been executed at least once, and the leaf is thus populated with indexes. The leaf node also contains an overflow anchor 168. The overflow anchor 168 is a pointer which points to an overflow table, which is a table created in the event that all fifty indexes are used in a particular leaf node, and more storage is needed.
FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating the method used to walk the radix tree and store instruction counts. First, the 32-bit flat address of the instruction must be developed (step 181). In some architectures, such as Intel architectures, this step will involve segment register calculations. In other architectures, this may be a much simpler step. Next, the performance monitor attempts to take advantage of a shortcut. If bytes 0 through 2 are the same as the previous instruction encountered (step 182), and the process has not changed (i.e. the process ID is the same, or the previous instruction and the current instruction are both in shared code), then the same leaf node that was just used will be used again (step 183). This is because all addresses with the same bytes 0, 1, and 2 are contained within the same 256-bit address space represented by a single leaf node.
If bytes 0 through 2 are not the same as the previous instruction (step 182), then a determination is made as to whether the current instruction is in shared code (step 185). If not, either the level 0 table for the current process will be obtained (steps 186 and 184), or a new entry will be added to the process table and storage will be allocated for a level 0 table (steps 186 and 187).
The next step is to walk the tree until a leaf node is found for this instruction. The performance monitor uses each byte of the instruction's address to get to the next level of the radix tree for the instruction (step 188). If the next level does not exist (step 189), a new radix level is built (step 190). This process is repeated until the final byte of the instruction's address is reached (step 191). If a leaf node does not exist for this instruction's address (step 192), a new leaf is added (step 193), and the instruction's byte 3 is entered into the first index area of the new leaf node. The count field of the new leaf node remains zero (as discussed above, this means one instruction is in the leaf). The frequency counter for the instruction also remains zero (as this also means the instruction has been encountered once).
If the leaf node already exists (step 192), the performance monitor tries to take advantage of a second shortcut. The hint is examined (step 194) to see if byte 3 of the current instruction is equal to the value in the index field referenced in the hint (step 195). If so, the appropriate counter is incremented (step 198). If not, byte 3 of the current address must be located within the leaf node (step 196). If found (step 197), the appropriate counter is incremented (step 198). If byte 3 is not found in the leaf node (step 197), the performance monitor will add the new entry to a free entry in the leaf (steps 199 and 200), search any overflow nodes (steps 202 and 203), or, if necessary, create an overflow leaf (step 201).
The final step (step 204) is to save the current instruction address, the current leaf address and the hint for use during the next iteration.
FIG. 8A is an example of one type of output a user may choose to view after running the performance monitor. For each task, the total number of instructions executed while that task was in control is given. In addition, the percentage of instructions executed during that task's control is given. For example, there were 158,330,076 instructions executed while TaskA was in control. These instructions represent 47.8% of the total instructions executed while the system was being monitored.
The same type of data may be viewed on a module basis or an instruction basis within a module, as shown in FIGS. 8B and 8C.
There are many other ways in which the performance data may be viewed and used by a user. Post-processing tools may convert assembly code instructions back to higher-level language instructions. The performance data may then be presented to the user in terms of the higher-level language instructions, rather than the assembly code instructions. This would be useful to a programmer who has written code in a higher-level language, as code modifications to improve performance would most likely be done in the higher-level language.
Although the invention has been described with a certain degree of particularity, it should be recognized that elements thereof may be altered by persons skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. One of the preferred implementations of the invention is as sets of instructions resident in the system memory 12 of one or more computer systems configured generally as described in FIG. 1. Until required by the computer system, the set of instructions may be stored in another computer readable memory, for example in a hard disk drive, or in a removable memory such as an optical disk for eventual use in a CD-ROM drive or a floppy disk for eventual use in a floppy disk drive. Further, the set of instructions can be stored in the memory of another computer and transmitted over a local area network or a wide area network, such as the Internet, when desired by the user. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the physical storage of the sets of instructions physically changes the medium upon which it is stored electrically, magnetically, or chemically so that the medium carries computer readable information. The invention is limited only by the following claims and their equivalents.
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Year of fee payment: 4
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text:
I got burned big time by ROSG, all hype and no truth. It shot up to $23 and now it's a disaster. Partnerships, Buy-outs, patents, non-stop good news but the price just kept going down. Everyone kept saying long term it was good and hold on but it's garbage.
What's the difference between ROSG and ATOS?
yea, he's mattyboom74 now
Ah, damn it! More downgrades! When will this end? I only have a 1000 shares though so please someone buy them!
Sentiment: Sell
let's be honest, unlike ROSG, we all thought we might capture a move like the $1.42 to $23 that happened last May. Hell, half of that move would be great. That's what sucks us in and we pay for it. They know exactly what they're doing and how to get people like us to pay for it. They won't ever pay, only we will.
yea, ROSG rocks, we've all been saying this stock's going to go up. Funny how it keeps going down. I guess the stock must be wrong! ha!
hopium kills
Sentiment: Strong Buy
another 10% off, ROSG should be on sale at J.C.Penny!
Hey, why don't you bagholders buy this stock back up to $6 or $8 or whatever you're buy in price is? Just buy it back up. What's the problem?
What a bunch of BS.. Months ago it was nothing but buyout coming, buyout coming, $55 per share long term, all the technical indicators are lined up, this stock's going to the moon. What a bunch of morons.
If I think I stock trade won't turn positive in my lifetime, I sell it. duh.
If it's going to $4, then why are you buying now?
Can you imagine buying this for $16 and thinking, WOW! It was $23 and now I got some for $16!!! I'm going to be rich!!! In a year or two I'll be a millionaire!!!!! $55 in no time. Buyout right around the corner!!! All the technical indicators line up!!! Yes, I did it!!! It'll never go below $16 again!!! Yes, I'm rich.!!! Finnally!!! Yahoo, I love the stock market!!! It's so easy to make money!!!! Yes!!!
That could be the catalyst for a flush. After that it's pure profit but before it's pure agony.
Also, remember it's not how good the earnings are but how they compare to the analysts expectations. Sorry to bring that up but you know it's true.
shake down? ha! just wait! news? ha! like last news!
to me that says the low has not been seen yet - good choice - I stepped out at $4.91 and I'm waiting for a flush.
MSLP already popped. STAY CLEAR.
Oh, wow, you're so amazing. Let's all worship you.
.15 cents isn't a spike. This stock used to spike a dollar.


text:
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text:
Many artists are perfectly content to present their viewers with forms and figures, sometimes explicitly, sometimes couched in abstraction. Their work is about aesthetic value: composition, balance, dynamism, color, expression, often imbued with, or evocative of, human emotion.
If you go
WHAT: "The Insistent Image: Recurrent Motifs in the Art of Shepard Fairey and Jasper Johns"
WHEN: May 22-July 12
WHERE: Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, 161 Calhoun St.
COST: Free
MORE INFO: halsey.cofc.edu; 953-4422
But some artists use their pictures as a language that describes something unrelated to pure aesthetics.
The art is put in the service of cultural or political com-mentary.
Two such artists, both rebels in their distinctive ways, will be presented by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art from May 22-July 12 in what is certain to be remembered as one of the most significant shows the venue has organized.
"The Insistent Image: Recurrent Motifs in the Art of Shepard Fairey and Jasper Johns" will feature the work of two South Carolina natives and draw attention to interesting similarities and big differences between them.
Additionally, Fairey is creating five outdoor public murals on the Charleston peninsula, for which special clearance had to be obtained from the city.
Those murals appear on the exterior of College Lodge, 159 Calhoun St.; across from Highwire Distillery, 652 King St.; on the north facing wall of Groucho's Deli, 364 King St.; on the elevator extension atop the Francis Marion Hotel, 387 King St.; and beneath the King Street marquee of the Sottile Theatre.