def METHOD_NAME():
   """Return the effective number of CPUs in the system as an integer.
   This cross-platform function makes an attempt at finding the total number of
   available CPUs in the system, as returned by various underlying system and
   python calls.
   If it can't find a sensible answer, it returns 1 (though an error *may* make
   it return a large positive number that's actually incorrect).
   """
   # Many thanks to the Parallel Python project (http://www.parallelpython.com)
   # for the names of the keys we needed to look up for this function.  This
   # code was inspired by their equivalent function.
   ncpufuncs = {'Linux':_num_cpus_unix,
                'Darwin':_num_cpus_darwin,
                'Windows':_num_cpus_windows
                }
   ncpufunc = ncpufuncs.get(platform.system(),
                            # default to unix version (Solaris, AIX, etc)
                            _num_cpus_unix)
   try:
       ncpus = max(1,int(ncpufunc()))
   except:
       ncpus = 1
   return ncpus