A New Direction for Computer Architecture Research

A New Direction for Computer Architecture Research Free Online Research Papers Abstract In this paper we suggest a different computing environment as a worthy new direction for computer architecture research: personal mobile computing, where portable devices are used for visual computing and personal communications tasks. Such a device supports in an integrated fashion all the functions provided today by a portable computer, a cellular phone, a digital camera and a video game. The requirements placed on the processor in this environment are energy efficiency, high performance for multimedia and DSP functions, and area efficient, scalable designs. We examine the architectures that were recently proposed for billion transistor microprocessors. While they are very promising for the stationary desktop and server workloads, we discover that most of them are unable to meet the challenges of the new environment and provide the necessary enhancements for multimedia applications running on portable devices. We conclude with Vector IRAM, an initial example of a microprocessor architecture and implementation that matches the new environment. 1 Introduction Advances in integrated circuits technology will soon provide the capability to integrate one billion transistors in a single chip [1]. This exciting opportunity presents computer architects and designers with the challenging problem of proposing microprocessor organizations able to utilize this huge transistor budget efficiently and meet the requirements of future applications. To address this challenge, IEEE Computer magazine hosted a special issue on Billion Transistor Architectures [2] in September 1997. The first three articles of the issue discussed problems and trends that will affect future processor design, while seven articles from academic research groups proposed microprocessor architectures and implementations for billion transistor chips. These proposals covered a wide architecture space, ranging from out-of-order designs to reconfigurable systems. In addition to the academic proposals, Intel and Hewlett-Packard presented the basic characteristics of their next generatio n IA-64 architecture [3], which is expected to dominate the high-performance processor market within a few years. It is no surprise that the focus of these proposals is the computing domain that has shaped processor architecture for the past decade: the uniprocessor desktop running technical and scientific applications, and the multiprocessor server used for transaction processing and file-system workloads. We start with a review of these proposals and a qualitative evaluation of them for the concerns of this classic computing environment. In the second part of the paper we introduce a new computing domain that we expect to play a significant role in driving technology in the next millennium: personal mobile computing. In this paradigm, the basic personal computing and communication devices will be portable and battery operated, will support multimedia functions like speech recognition and video, and will be sporadically interconnected through a wireless infrastructure. A different set of requirements for the microprocessor, like real-time response, DSP support and energy efficiency, arise in such an environment. We examine the proposed organizations with respect to this environment and discover that limited support for its requirements is present in most of them. Finally we present Vector IRAM, a first effort for a microprocessor architecture and design that matches the requirements of the new environment. Vector IRAM combines a vector processing architecture with merged logic-DRAM technology in order to provide a scalable, cost efficient design for portable multimedia devices. This paper reflects the opinion and expectations of its authors. We believe that in order to design successful processor architectures for the future, we first need to explore the future applications of computing and then try to match their requirements in a scalable, cost-efficient way. The goal of this paper is to point out the potential change in applications and motivate architecture research in this direction. 2 Overview of the Billion Transistor Processors Architecture Source Key Idea Transistors used for Memory Advanced Superscalar [4] wide-issue superscalar processor with speculative execution and multilevel on-chip caches 910M Superspeculative Architecture [5] wide-issue superscalar processor with aggressive data and control speculation and multilevel on-chip caches 820M Trace Processor [6] multiple distinct cores,that speculatively execute program traces, with multilevel on-chip caches 600M (footnote 1) Simultaneous Multithreaded (SMT) [7] wide superscalar with support for aggressive sharing among multiple threads and multilevel on-chip caches 810M Chip Multiprocessor (CMP) [8] symmetric multiprocessor system with shared second level cache 450M (footnote 1) IA-64 [3] VLIW architecture with support for predicated execution and long instruction bundling 600M (footnote 1) RAW [9] multiple processing tiles with reconfigurable logic and memory, interconnected through a reconfigurable network 640M Table 1: The billion transistor microprocessors and the number of transistors used for memory cells for each one. We assume a billion transistor implementation for the Trace and IA-64 architecture. Table 1 summarizes the basic features of the billion transistor implementations for the proposed architectures as presented in the corresponding references. For the case of the Trace Processor and IA-64, descriptions of billion transistor implementations have not been presented, hence certain features are speculated. The first two architectures (Advanced Superscalar and Superspeculative Architecture) have very similar characteristics. The basic idea is a wide superscalar organization with multiple execution units or functional cores, that uses multi-level caching and aggressive prediction of data, control and even sequences of instructions (traces) to utilize all the available instruction level parallelism (ILP). Due their similarity, we group them together and call them Wide Superscalar processors in the rest of this paper. The Trace processor consists of multiple superscalar processing cores, each one executing a trace issued by a shared instruction issue unit. It also employs trace and data prediction and shared caches. The Simultaneous Multithreaded (SMT) processor uses multithreading at the granularity of issue slot to maximize the utilization of a wide-issue out-of-order superscalar processor at the cost of additional complexity in the issue and control logic. The Chip Multiprocessor (CMP) uses the transistor budget by placing a symmetric multiprocessor on a single die. There will be eight uniprocessors on the chip, all similar to current out-of-order processors, which will have separate first level caches but will share a large second level cache and the main memory interface. The IA-64 can be considered as the commercial reincarnation of the VLIW architecture, renamed Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computer. Its major innovations announced so far are support for bundling multiple long instructions and the instruction dependence information attached to each one of them, which attack the problem of scaling and code density of older VLIW machines. It also includes hardware checks for hazards and interlocks so that binary compatibility can be maintained across generations of chips. Finally, it supports predicated execution through general-purpose predication registers to reduce control hazards. The RAW machine is probably the most revolutionary architecture proposed, supporting the case of reconfigurable logic for general-purpose computing. The processor consists of 128 tiles, each with a processing core, small first level caches backed by a larger amount of dynamic memory (128 KBytes) used as main memory, and a reconfigurable functional unit. The tiles are interconnected with a reconfigurable network in an matrix fashion. The emphasis is placed on the software infrastructure, compiler and dynamic-event support, which handles the partitioning and mapping of programs on the tiles, as well as the configuration selection, data routing and scheduling. Table 1 also reports the number of transistors used for caches and main memory in each billion transistor processors. This varies from almost half the budget to 90% of it. It is interesting to notice that all but one do not use that budget as part of the main system memory: 50% to 90% of their transistor budget is spent to build caches in order to tolerate the high latency and low bandwidth problem of external memory. In other words, the conventional vision of computers of the future is to spend most of the billion transistor budget on redundant, local copies of data normally found elsewhere in the system. Is such redundancy really our best idea for the use of 500,000,000 transistors (footnote 2) for applications of the future? 3 The Desktop/Server Computing Domain Wide Superscalar Trace Processor Simultaneous Multithreaded Chip Multiprocessor IA-64 RAW SPEC04 Int (Desktop) + + + = + = SPEC04 FP (Desktop) + + + + + = TPC-F (Server) = = + + = Software Effort + + = = = Physical Design Complexity = = = + Table 2: The evaluation of the billion transistor processors for the desktop/server domain. Wide Superscalar processors includes the Advanced Superscalar and Superspeculative processors. Current processors and computer systems are being optimized for the desktop and server domain, with SPEC95 and TPC-C/D being the most popular benchmarks. This computing domain will likely be significant when the billion transistor chips will be available and similar benchmark suites will be in use. We playfully call them SPEC04 for technical/scientific applications and TPC-F for on-line transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. Table 2 presents our prediction of the performance of these processors for this domain using a grading system of + for strength, = for neutrality, and -for weakness. For the desktop environment, the Wide Superscalar, Trace and Simultaneous Multithreading processors are expected to deliver the highest performance on integer SPEC04, since out-of-order and advanced prediction techniques can utilize most of the available ILP of a single sequential program. IA-64 will perform slightly worse because VLIW compilers are not mature enough to outperform the most advanced hardware ILP techniques, which exploit run-time information. CMP and RAW will have inferior performance since desktop applications have not been shown to be highly parallelizable. CMP will still benefit from the out-of-order features of its cores. For floating point applications on the other hand, parallelism and high memory bandwidth are more important than out-of-order execution, hence SMT and CMP will have some additional advantage. For the server domain, CMP and SMT will provide the best performance, due to their ability to utilize coarse-grain parallelism even with a single chip. Wide Superscalar, Trace processor or IA-64 systems will perform worse, since current evidence is that out-of-order execution provides little benefit to database-like applications [11]. With the RAW architecture it is difficult to predict any potential success of its software to map the parallelism of databases on reconfigurable logic and software controlled caches. For any new architecture to be widely accepted, it has to be able to run a significant body of software [10]. Thus, the effort needed to port existing software or develop new software is very important. The Wide Superscalar and Trace processors have the edge, since they can run existing executables. The same holds for SMT and CMP but, in this case, high performance can be delivered if the applications are written in a multithreaded or parallel fashion. As the past decade has taught us, parallel programming for high performance is neither easy nor automated. For IA-64 a significant amount of work is required to enhance VLIW compilers. The RAW machine relies on the most challenging software development. Apart from the requirements of sophisticated routing, mapping and run-time scheduling tools, there is a need for development of compilers or libraries to make such an design usable. A last issue is that of physical design complexity which includes the effort for design, verification and testing. Currently, the whole development of an advanced microprocessor takes almost 4 years and a few hundred engineers [2][12][13]. Functional and electrical verification and testing complexity has been steadily growing [14][15] and accounts for the majority of the processor development effort. The Wide Superscalar and Multithreading processors exacerbate both problems by using complex techniques like aggressive data/control prediction, out-of-order execution and multithreading, and by having non modular designs (multiple blocks individually designed). The Chip Multiprocessor carries on the complexity of current out-of-order designs with support for cache coherency and multiprocessor communication. With the IA-64 architecture, the basic challenge is the design and verification of the forwarding logic between the multiple functional units on the chip. The Trace processor and RAW machine are more modular designs. The trace processor employs replication of processing elements to reduce complexity. Still, trace prediction and issue, which involves intra-trace dependence check and register remapping, as well as intra-element forwarding includes a significant portion of the complexity of a wide superscalar design. For the RAW processor, only a single tile and network switch need to be designed and replicated. Verification of a reconfigurable organization is trivial in terms of the circuits, but verification of the mapping software is also required. The conclusion from Table 2 is that the proposed billion transistor processors have been optimized for such a computing environment and most of them promise impressive performance. The only concern for the future is the design complexity of these organizations. A New Target for Future Computers: Personal Mobile Computing In the last few years, we have experienced a significant change in technology drivers. While high-end systems alone used to direct the evolution of computing, current technology is mostly driven by the low-end systems due to their large volume. Within this environment, two important trends have evolved that could change the shape of computing. The first new trend is that of multimedia applications. The recent improvements in circuits technology and innovations in software development have enabled the use of real-time media data-types like video, speech, animation and music. These dynamic data-types greatly improve the usability, quality, productivity and enjoyment of personal computers [16]. Functions like 3D graphics, video and visual imaging are already included in the most popular applications and it is common knowledge that their influence on computing will only increase: 90% of desktop cycles will be spent on `media applications by 2000 [17] multimedia workloads will continue to increase in importance [2] many users would like outstanding 3D graphics and multimedia [12] image, handwriting, and speech recognition will be other major challenges [15] At the same time, portable computing and communication devices have gained large popularity. Inexpensive gadgets, small enough to fit in a pocket, like personal digital assistants (PDA), palmtop computers, webphones and digital cameras were added to the list of portable devices like notebook computers, cellular phones, pagers and video games [18]. The functions supported by such devices are constantly expanded and multiple devices are converging into a single one. This leads to a natural increase in their demand for computing power, but at the same time their size, weight and power consumption have to remain constant. For example, a typical PDA is 5 to 8 inches by 3.2 inches big, weighs six to twelve ounces, has 2 to 8 MBytes of memory (ROM/RAM) and is expected to run on the same set of batteries for a period of a few days to a few weeks [18]. One should also notice the large software, operating system and networking infrastructure developed for such devices (wireless modems, infra-r ed communications etc): Windows CE and the PalmPilot development environment are prime examples [18]. Figure 1: Personal mobile devices of the future will integrate the functions of current portable devices like PDAs, video games, digital cameras and cellular phones. Our expectation is that these two trends together will lead to a new application domain and market in the near future. In this environment, there will be a single personal computation and communication device, small enough to carry around all the time. This device will include the functions of a pager, a cellular phone, a laptop computer, a PDA, a digital camera and a video game combined [19][20] (Figure 1) . The most important feature of such a device will be the interface and interaction with the user: voice and image input and output (speech and voice recognition) will be key functions used to type notes, scan documents and check the surrounding for specific objects [20]. A wireless infrastructure for sporadic connectivity will be used for services like networking (www and email), telephony and global positioning system (GPS), while the device will be fully functional even in the absence of network connectivity. Potentially this device will be all that a person may need to perform tasks ranging from keeping notes to making an on-line presentation, and from browsing the web to programming a VCR. The numerous uses of such devices and the potential large volume [20] lead us to expect that this computing domain will soon become at least as significant as desktop computing is today. The microprocessor needed for these computing devices is actually a merged general-purpose processor and digital-signal processor (DSP), at the power budget of the latter. There are four major requirements: high performance for multimedia functions, energy/power efficiency, small size and low design complexity. The basic characteristics of media-centric applications that a processor needs to support or utilize in order to provide high-performance were specified in [16] in the same issue of IEEE Computer: real-time response: instead of maximum peak performance, sufficient worst case guaranteed performance is needed for real-time qualitative perception for applications like video. continuous-media data types: media functions are typically processing a continuous stream of input that is discarded once it is too old, and continuously send results to a display or speaker. Hence, temporal locality in data memory accesses, the assumption behind 15 years of innovation in conventional memory systems, no longer holds. Remarkably, data caches may well be an obstacle to high performance for continuous-media data types. This data is also narrow, as pixel images and sound samples are 8 to 16 bits wide, rather than the 32-bit or 64-bit data of desktop machines. The ability to perform multiple operations on such types on a single wide datapath is desirable. fine-grained parallelism: in functions like image, voice and signal processing, the same operation is performed across sequences of data in a vector or SIMD fashion. coarse-grained parallelism: in many media applications a single stream of data is processed by a pipeline of functions to produce the end result. high instruction-reference locality: media functions usually have small kernels or loops that dominate the processing time and demonstrate high temporal and spatial locality for instructions. high memory bandwidth: applications like 3D graphics require huge memory bandwidth for large data sets that have limited locality. high network bandwidth: streaming data like video or images from external sources requires high network and I/O bandwidth. With a budget of less than two Watts for the whole device, the processor has to be designed with a power target less than one Watt, while still being able to provide high-performance for functions like speech recognition. Power budgets close to those of current high-performance microprocessors (tens of Watts) are unacceptable. After energy efficiency and multimedia support, the third main requirement for personal mobile computers is small size and weight. The desktop assumption of several chips for external cache and many more for main memory is infeasible for PDAs, and integrated solutions that reduce chip count are highly desirable. A related matter is code size, as PDAs will have limited memory to keep down costs and size, so the size of program representations is important. A final concern is design complexity, like in the desktop domain, and scalability. An architecture should scale efficiently not only in terms of performance but also in terms of physical design. Long interconnects for on-chip communication are expected to be a limiting factor for future processors as a small region of the chip (around 15%) will be accessible in a single clock cycle [21] and therefore should be avoided. 5 Processor Evaluation for Mobile Multimedia Applications Wide Superscalar Trace Processor Simultaneous Multithreaded Chip Multiprocessor IA-64 RAW Real-time Response = = = = unpredictability of out-of-order, branch prediction and/or caching techniques Continuous Data-types = = = = = = caches do not efficiently support data streams with little locality Fine-grained Parallelism = = = = = + MMX-like extensions less efficient than full vector support reconfigurable logic unit Coarse-grained Parallelism = = + + = + Code Size = = = = = potential use of loop unrolling and software pipelining for higher ILP VLIW instructions hardware configuration Memory Bandwidth = = = = = = cache-based designs Energy/power Efficiency = = power penalty for out-of-order schemes, complex issue logic, forwarding and reconfigurable logic} Physical Design Complexity = = = + Design Scalability = = = = long wires for forwarding data or for reconfigurable interconnect Table 3: The evaluation of the billion transistor processors for the personal mobile computing domain. Table 3 summarizes our evaluation of the billion transistor architectures with respect to personal mobile computing. The support for multimedia applications is limited in most architectures. Out-of-order techniques and caches make the delivered performance quite unpredictable for guaranteed real-time response, while hardware controlled caches also complicate support for continuous-media data-types. Fine-grained parallelism is exploited by using MMX-like or reconfigurable execution units. Still, MMX-like extensions expose data alignment issues to the software and restrict the number of vector or SIMD elements operations per instruction, limiting this way their usability and scalability. Coarse-grained parallelism, on the other hand, is best on the Simultaneous Multithreading, Chip Multiprocessor and RAW architectures. Instruction reference locality has traditionally been exploited through large instruction caches. Yet, designers of portable system would prefer reductions in code size as suggested by the 16-bit instruction versions of MIPS and ARM [22]. Code size is a weakness for IA-64 and any other architecture that relies heavily on loop unrolling for performance, as it will surely be larger than that of 32-bit RISC machines. RAW may also have code size problems, as one must program the reconfigurable portion of each datapath. The code size penalty of the other designs will likely depend on how much they exploit loop unrolling and in-line procedures to expose enough parallelism for high performance. Memory bandwidth is another limited resource for cache-based architectures, especially in the presence of multiple data sequences, with little locality, being streamed through the system. The potential use of streaming buffers and cache bypassing would help for sequential bandwidth but would still not address that of scattered or random accesses. In addition, it would be embarrassing to rely on cache bypassing when 50% to 90% of the transistors are dedicated to caches! The energy/power efficiency issue, despite its importance both for portable and desktop domains [23], is not addressed in most designs. Redundant computation for out-of-order models, complex issue and dependence analysis logic, fetching a large number of instructions for a single loop, forwarding across long wires and use of the typically power hungry reconfigurable logic increase the energy consumption of a single task and the power of the processor. As for physical design scalability, forwarding results across large chips or communication among multiple core or tiles is the main problem of most designs. Such communication already requires multiple cycles in high-performance out-of-order designs. Simple pipelining of long interconnects is not a sufficient solution as it exposes the timing of forwarding or communication to the scheduling logic or software and increases complexity. The conclusion from Table 3 is that the proposed processors fail to meet many of the requirements of the new computing model. This indicates the need for modifications of the architectures and designs or the proposal of different approaches. 6 Vector IRAM Desktop/Server Computing Personal Mobile Computing SPEC04 Int (Desktop) Real-time response + SPEC04 FP (Desktop) + Continuous data-types + TPC-F (Server) = Fine-grained parallelism + Software Effort = Coarse-grained parallelism = Physical Design Complexity = Code size + Memory Bandwidth + Energy/power efficiency + Design scalability = Table: The evaluation of VIRAM for the two computing environments. The grades presented are the medians of those assigned by reviewers. Vector IRAM (VIRAM) [24], the architecture proposed by the research group of the authors, is a first effort for a processor architecture and design that matches the requirements of the mobile personal environment. VIRAM is based on two main ideas, vector processing and the integration of logic and DRAM on a single chip. The former addresses many of the demands of multimedia processing, and the latter addresses the energy efficiency, size, and weight demands of PDAs. We do not believe that VIRAM is the last word on computer architecture research for mobile multimedia applications, but we hope it proves to be an promising first step. The VIRAM processor described in the IEEE special issue consists of an in-order dual-issue superscalar processor with first level caches, tightly integrated with a vector execution unit with multiple pipelines (8). Each pipeline can support parallel operations on multiple media types, DSP functions like multiply- accumulate and saturated logic. The memory system consists of 96 MBytes of DRAM used as main memory. It is organized in a hierarchical fashion with 16 banks and 8 sub-banks per bank, connected to the scalar and vector unit through a crossbar. This provides sufficient sequential and random bandwidth even for demanding applications. External I/O is brought directly to the on-chip memory through high-speed serial lines operating at the range of Gbit/s instead of parallel buses. From a programming point of view, VIRAM can be seen as a vector or SIMD microprocessor. Table 4 presents the grades for VIRAM for the two computing environments. We present the median grades given by reviewers of this paper, including the architects of some of the other billion transistor architectures. Obviously, VIRAM is not competitive within the desktop/server domain; indeed, this weakness for conventional computing is probably the main reason some are skeptical of the importance of merged logic-DRAM technology [25]. For the case of integer SPEC04 no benefit can be expected from vector processing for integer applications. Floating point intensive applications, on the other hand, have been shown to be highly vectorizable. All applications will still benefit from the low memory latency and high memory bandwidth. For the server domain, VIRAM is expected to perform poorly due to limited on-chip memory (footnote 3). A potentially different evaluation for the server domain could arise if we examine decision support (DSS) instead of OLTP workloads. In this case, small code loops with highly data parallel operations dominate execution time [26], so architectures like VIRAM and RAW should perform significantly better than for OLTP workloads. In terms of software effort, vectorizing compilers have been developed and used in commercial environments for years now. Additional work is required to tune such compilers for multimedia workloads. As for design complexity, VIRAM is a highly modular design. The necessary building blocks are the in-order scalar core, the vector pipeline, which is replicated 8 times, and the basic memory array tile. Due to the lack of dependencies and forwarding in the vector model and the in-order paradigm, the verification effort is expected to be low. The open question in this case is the complications of merging high-speed logic with DRAM to cost, yield and testing. Many DRAM companies are investing in merged logic-DRAM fabrication lines and many companies are exploring products in this area. Also, our project is submitting a test chip this summer with several key circuits of VIRAM in a merged logic-DRAM process. We expect the answer to this open question to be clearer in the next year. Unlike the other proposals, the challenge for VIRAM is the implementation technology and not the microarchitectural design. As mentioned above, VIRAM is a good match to the personal mobile computing model. The design is in-order and does not rely on caches, making the delivered performance highly predictable. The vector model is superior to MMX-like solutions, as it provides explicit support of the length of SIMD instructions, and it does not expose data packing and alignment to software and is scalable. Since most media processing functions are based on algorithms working on vectors of pixels or samples, its not surprising that highest performance can be delivered by a vector unit. Code size is small compared to other architectures as whole loops can specified in a single vector instruction. Memory bandwidth, both sequential and random is available from the on-chip hierarchical DRAM. VIRAM is expected to have high energy efficiency as well. In the vector model there are no dependencies, so the limited forwarding within each pipeline is needed for chaining, and vector machines do not require chaining to occur within a single clock cycle. Performance comes from multiple vector pipelines working in parallel on the same vector operation as well as from high-frequency operation, allowing the same performance at lower clock rate and thus lower voltage as long as the functional units are expanded. As energy goes up with the square of the voltage in CMOS logic, such tradeoffs can dramatically improve energy efficiency. In addition, the execution model is strictly in order. Hence, the logic can be kept simple and power efficient. DRAM has been traditionally optimized for low-power and the hierarchical structure provides the ability to activate just the sub-banks containing the necessary data. As for physical design scalability, the processor-memory crossbar is the only place were long wires are used. Still, the vector model can tolerate latency if sufficient fine-grain parallelism is available, so deep pipelining is a viable solution without any hardware or software complications in this environment. 7 Conclusions For almost two decades architecture research has been focussed on desktop or server machines. As a result of that attention, todays microprocessors are 1000 times faster. Nevertheless, we are designing processors of the future with a heavy bias for the past. For example, the programs in the SPEC95 suite were originally written many years ago, yet these were the main drivers for most papers in the special issue on billion transistor processors for 2010. A major point of this article is that we believe it is time for some of us in this very successful community to investigate architectures with a heavy bias for the future. The historic concentration of processor research on stationary computing environments has been matched by a consolidation of the processor industry. Within a few years, this class of machines will likely be based on microprocessors using a single architecture from a single company. Perhaps it is time for some of us to declare victory, and explore future computer applications as well as future architectures. In the last few years, the major use of computing devices has shifted to non-engineering areas. Personal computing is already the mainstream market, portable devices for computation, communication and entertainment have become popular, and multimedia functions drive the application market. We expect that the combination of these will lead to the personal mobile computing domain, where portability, energy efficiency and efficient interfaces through the use of media types (voice and images) will be the key features. One advantage of this new target for the architecture community is its unquestionable need for improvements in terms of MIPS/Watt, for either more demanding applications like speech input or much longer battery life are desired for PDAs. Its less clear that desktop computers really need orders of magnitude more performance to run MS-Office 2010. The question we asked is whether the proposed new architectures can meet the challenges of this new computing domain. Unfortunately, the answer is negative for most of them, at least in the form they were presented. Limited and mostly ad-hoc support for multimedia or DSP functions is provided, power is not a serious issue and unlimited complexity of design and verification is justified by even slightly higher peak performance. Providing the necessary support for personal mobile computing requires a significant shift in the way we design processors. The key requirements that processor designers will have to address will be energy efficiency to allow battery operated devices, focus on worst case performance instead of peak for real-time applications, multimedia and DSP support to enable visual computing, and simple scalable designs with reduced development and verification cycles. New benchmarks suites, representative of the new types of workloads and requirements are also necessary. We believe that personal mobile computing offers a vision of the future with a much richer and more exciting set of architecture research challenges than extrapolations of the current desktop architectures and benchmarks. VIRAM is a first approach in this direction. Put another way, which problem would you rather work on: improving performance of PCs running FPPPP or making speech input practical for PDAs? 8 Acknowledgments References 1 Semiconductor Industry Association. The National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. SEMATECH Inc., 1997. 2 D. Burger and D. Goodman. Billion-Transistor Architectures Guest Editors Introduction. IEEE Computer, 30(9):46-48, September 1997. 3 J. Crawford and J. Huck. Motivations and Design Approach for the IA-64 64-Bit Instruction Set Architecture. In the Proceedings of the Microprocessor Forum, October 1997. 4 Y.N. Patt, S.J. Patel, M. Evers, D.H. Friendly, and J. Stark. One Billion Transistors, One Uniprocessor, One Chip. IEEE Computer, 30(9):51-57, September 1997. 5 M. Lipasti and L.P. Shen. Superspeculative Microarchitecture for Beyond AD 2000. IEEE Computer, 30(9):59-66, September 1997. 6 J. Smith and S. Vajapeyam. Trace Processors: Moving to Fourth Generation Microarchitectures. IEEE Computer, 30(9):68-74, September 1997. 7 S.J. Eggers, J.S. Emer, H.M. Leby, J.L. Lo, R.L. Stamm, and D.M. Tullsen. Simultaneous Multithreading: a Platform for Next-Generation Processors. IEEE MICRO, 17(5):12-19, October 1997. 8 L. Hammond, B.A. Nayfeh, and K. Olukotun. A Single-Chip Multiprocessor. IEEE Computer, 30(9):79-85, September 1997. 9 E. Waingold, M. Taylor, D. Srikrishna, V. Sarkar, W. Lee, V. Lee, J. Kim, M. Frank, P. Finch, R. Barua, J. Babb, S. Amarasinghe, and A. Agarwal. Baring It All to Software: Raw Machines. IEEE Computer, 30(9):86-93, September 1997. 10 J Hennessy and D. Patterson. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, second edition. Morgan Kaufmann, 1996. 11 K. Keeton, D.A. Patterson, Y.Q. He, and Baker W.E. Performance Characterization of the Quad Pentium Pro SMP Using OLTP Workloads. In the Proceedings of the 1998 International Symposium on Computer Architecture (to appear), June 1998. 12 G. Grohoski. Challenges and Trends in Processor Design: Reining in Complexity. IEEE Computer, 31(1):41-42, January 1998. 13 P. Rubinfeld. Challenges and Trends in Processor Design: Managing Problems in High Speed. IEEE Computer, 31(1):47-48, January 1998. 14 R. Colwell. Challenges and Trends in Processor Design: Maintaining a Leading Position. IEEE Computer, 31(1):45-47, January 1998. 15 E. Killian. Challenges and Trends in Processor Design: Challenges, Not Roadblocks. IEEE Computer, 31(1):44-45, January 1998. 16 K. Diefendorff and P. Dubey. How Multimedia Workloads Will Change Processor Design. IEEE Computer, 30(9):43-45, September 1997. 17 W. Dally. Tomorrows Computing Engines. Keynote Speech, Fourth International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture, February 1998. 18 T. Lewis. Information Appliances: Gadget Netopia. IEEE Computer, 31(1):59-68, January 1998. 19 V. Cerf. The Next 50 Years of Networking. In the ACM97 Conference Proceedings, March 1997. 20 G. Bell and J. Gray. Beyond Calculation, The Next 50 Years of Computing, chapter The Revolution Yet to Happen. Springer-Verlag, February 1997. 21 D. Matzke. Will Physical Scalability Sabotage Performance Gains? IEEE Computer, 30(9):37-39, September 1997. 22 L. Goudge and S. Segars. Thumb: reducing the cost of 32-bit RISC performance in portable and consumer applications. In the Digest of Papers, COMPCON 96, February 1996. 23 T. Mudge. Strategic Directions in Computer Architecture. ACM Computing Surveys, 28(4):671-678, December 1996. 24 C.E. Kozyrakis, S. Perissakis, D. Patterson, T. Anderson, K. Asanovic, N. Cardwell, R. Fromm, J. Golbus, B. Gribstad, K. Keeton, R. Thomas, N. Treuhaft, and K. Yelick. Scalable Processors in the Billion-Transistor Era: IRAM. IEEE Computer, 30(9):75-78, September 1997. 25 D. Lammers. Holy grail of embedded dram challenged. EE Times, 1997. 26 P. Trancoso, J. Larriba-Pey, Z. Zhang, and J. Torrellas. The Memory Performance of DSS Commercial Workloads in Shared-Memory Multiprocessors. In the Proceeding of the Third International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture, January 1997. 27 K. Keeton, R. Arpaci-Dusseau, and D.A. Patterson. IRAM and SmartSIMM: Overcoming the I/O Bus Bottleneck. In the Workshop on Mixing Logic and DRAM: Chips that Compute and Remember, the 24th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, June 1997. 28 K. Keeton, D.A. Patterson, and J.M. Hellerstein. The Intelligent Disk (IDISK): A Revolutionary Approach to Database Computing Infrastructure. submitted for publication, March 1998. Footnote 1 These numbers include transistors for main memory, caches and tags. They are calculated based on information from the referenced papers. Note that CMP uses considerably less than one billion transistors, so 450M transistors is much more than half the budget. The numbers for the Trace processor and IA-64 were based on lower-limit expectations and the fact that their predecessors spent at least half their transistor budget on caches. Footnote 2 While die area is not a linear function of the transistor number (memory transistors can be placed much more densely than logic transistors and redundancy enables repair of failed rows or columns), die cost is non-linear function of die area [10]. Thus, these 500M transistors are very expensive. Footnote 3 While the use of VIRAM as the main CPU is not attractive for servers, a more radical approach to servers of the future places a VIRAM in each SIMM module [27] or each disk [28] and have them communicate over high speed serial lines via crossbar switches. Research Papers on A New Direction for Computer Architecture ResearchOpen Architechture a white paperBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfThe Project Managment Office SystemRiordan Manufacturing Production PlanIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalAnalysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaStandardized TestingDefinition of Export QuotasGenetic EngineeringInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married Males

Biography of Matthew Henson

Biography of Matthew Henson In 1908 explorer Robert Peary set out to reach the North Pole. His mission began with 24 men, 19 sledges and 133 dogs. By April of the following year, Peary had four men, 40 dogs and his most trusted and loyal team member- Matthew Henson. As the team trudged through the Arctic, Peary said, â€Å"Henson must go all the way. I can’t make it there without him.† On April 6, 1909, Peary and Henson became the first men in history to reach the North Pole. Achievements   Credited with being the first African-American to reach the North Pole with Peary explorer in 1909.Published A Black Explorer at the North Pole in 1912.Appointed to the US Customs House in recognition of Henson’s Arctic travels by former President William Howard Taft.Recipient of the Joint Medal of Honor by US Congress in 1944.Admitted to the Explorer’s Club, a professional organization dedicated to honoring the work of men and women conducting field research.Interred in Arlington National Cemetery in 1987  by former President Ronald Reagan.Commemorated with a US Postage Stamp in 1986 for his work as an explorer. Early Life Henson was born Matthew Alexander Henson in Charles County, Md. On August 8, 1866. His parents worked as sharecroppers. Following the death of his mother in 1870, Henson’s father moved the family to Washington D.C. By Henson’s tenth birthday, his father also died, leaving him and his siblings as orphans. At the age of eleven, Henson ran away from home and within a year he was working on a ship as a cabin boy. While working on the ship, Henson became the mentee of Captain Childs, who taught him not only to read and write but also navigation skills. Henson returned to Washington D.C. after Childs’ death and worked with a furrier. While working with the furrier, Henson met Peary who would enlist Henson’s services as a valet during travel expeditions. Life As an Explorer   Peary and Henson embarked on an expedition of Greenland in 1891. During this time period, Henson became interested in learning about Eskimo culture. Henson and Peary spent two years in Greenland, learning the language and various survival skills that Eskimos used. For the next several years Henson would accompany Peary on several expeditions to Greenland to collect meteorites which were sold to the American Museum of Natural History. The proceeds of Peary and Henson’s findings in Greenland would fund expeditions as they tried to reach the North Pole. In 1902, the team attempted to reach the North Pole only to have several Eskimo members die from starvation. But by 1906 with the financial support of former President Theodore Roosevelt, Peary and Henson were able to purchase a vessel that could cut through ice. Although the vessel was able to sail within 170 miles of the North Pole, melted ice blocked the sea path in the direction of the North Pole. Two years later, the team took another chance at reaching the North Pole. By this time, Henson was able to train other team members on sled handling and other survival skills learned from Eskimos. For a year, Henson stayed with Peary as other team members gave up.   And on April 6, 1909, Henson, Peary, four Eskimos and 40 dogs reached the North Pole. Later Years Although reaching the North Pole was a great feat for all team member, Peary received credit for the expedition. Henson’s  was almost forgotten because he was an African-American. For the next thirty years, Henson worked in the US Customs office as a clerk. In 1912 Henson published his memoir Black Explorer at the North Pole. Later in life, Henson was acknowledged for his work as an explorer- he was granted membership to the elite Explorer’s Club in New York. In 1947 the Chicago Geographic Society awarded Henson with a gold medal. That same year, Henson collaborated with Bradley Robinson to write his biography Dark Companion. Personal Life Henson married Eva Flint in April of 1891. However, Henson’s constant travels caused the couple to divorce six years later. In 1906 Henson married Lucy Ross and their union lasted until his death in 1955. Although the couple never had children, Henson had many sexual relationships with Eskimo  women. From one of these relationships, Henson bore a son named Anauakaq around 1906. In 1987, Anauakaq met the descendants of Peary. Their reunion is well documented in the book, North Pole Legacy: Black, White, and Eskimo. Death Henson died on March 5, 1955, in New York City. His body was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Thirteen years later, his wife Lucy also died and she was buried with Henson. In 1987 Ronald Reagan honored the life and work of Henson by having his body re-interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Responsibility and brand advertising in the alcoholic beverage market Essay - 1

Responsibility and brand advertising in the alcoholic beverage market. The modelling of normative drinking behaviour. by Debra Jones Ringold - Essay Example Thesis Statement: The purpose of this essay is to critically review the above article by Ringold (2008). The theories, ideas or beliefs that the author tested will be summarised; the contents of the article will be condensed; and the weaknesses and strengths of the research study will be critically analysed. Ringold (2008) states that her study revealed moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages as the norm in the United States. This is similar to the results of the Gallup polls (2004) which have indicated the same outcome since 1939. The recommendations given by the United States Dietary Guidelines on moderate drinking was consistent with the consumption found in 90% of people who consume alcohol. This is supported by Saad (2005), who states that underage drinking and alcohol abuse have considerably reduced in the last three decades. The per capita consumption of alcohol has continued to decline over the past twenty-five years, states NIAAA (2006). The main aim of the article by Ringold (2008) is to study the outcome of alcoholic beverage advertising on its consumption levels. The research study takes into consideration the actual and desired impacts of, describes and evaluates the controversy regarding industry-sponsored responsibility campaigns; and identifies a number of issues that require future research. The results of the study reveal that alcoholic beverage advertising does not exert a material influence on total consumption or abuse. On the other hand, it models normative drinking behaviour, hence may be a crucial inhibitor of alchohol misuse. Responsibility efforts sponsored by industry, by government and by nonprofits lead to desired changes, modeling desired drinking behaviours, and may be more beneficial for heavier drinkers. The article by Ringold (2008) is timely, because of the continued trend of increased expenditure on advertising, undertaken by alcohol manufacturers. This is

Phy107 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Phy107 - Essay Example A blackbody emits infrared wavelengths at room temperature. As the temperature increases, the blackbody starts to emit visible light, starting from red to orange, yellow to white and blue with increasing temperature. When the blackbody turns white, it is already emitting ultraviolet radiation. Stefan's Law states that the total energy radiated by a blackbody per unit surface area is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. This means that as temperature increases, the wavelength of the radiation emitted decreases. Doppler Effect, or Doppler shift, happens when an observer is moving relative to the wave source - there is a change in the frequency of the wave perceived by the observer. This means that when we are approaching the wave source, we perceive a higher frequency. When we are receding from the wave source, we perceive a lower frequency. Spectroscopy refers to the dispersion of an object's light into its component colors. By analyzing the light emitted by an object, the physical properties of that object such as temperature, mass, luminosity and composition can be inferred by an astronomer. Continuous spectrum, as opposed to discrete spectrum, refers to energy at all wavelengths. It is emitted by warm objects. The spectrum of light with missing frequencies is called absorption spectrum. ... Continuous spectrum, as opposed to discrete spectrum, refers to energy at all wavelengths. It is emitted by warm objects. The spectrum of light with missing frequencies is called absorption spectrum. The missing frequencies correspond to wavelengths of light that were absorbed. 3. Explain how a beam of light passing through a diffuse cloud may give rise to both absorption and emission spectra. Suppose that a beam of light passes through a gas, some of the frequencies of the light will be absorbed by the gas. The rest of the frequencies will be able to pass through. When these surviving frequencies are dispersed through a prism, they will show a spectrum with gaps on it. The visible spectrum will correspond to the emission spectrum while the dark bands will correspond to the absorption spectrum. 4. List three properties of a star that can be determined from observations of its spectrum. a. Total energy that the star radiates b. Luminosity c. Surface temperature CHAPTER 5 1. List three advantages of reflecting telescopes over refractors. a. Refractors tend to be heavier overall than reflecting telescopes because of their longer solid tubes and require a larger housing and a more massive mount. b. Reflectors don't disperse color as most refractors are to one degree or another. c. In a refractor the lens can only be supported along the edge so that the path is clear for light to come through unobstructed. 2. How does Earth's atmosphere affect what is seen through an optical telescope The Earth's atmosphere is constantly moving, and different layers bend the light from a star in different directions, blurring our view from the ground. 3. What are the advantages of a CCD over a photograph The major advantages of CCD-based cameras are

The short story Two Kinds Essay Example for Free

The short story Two Kinds Essay Analysis: The short story, Two Kinds,ï ¿ ½ displays the relationship between a Chinese mother and a disobedient Americanized daughter. Jing-mei, a second-generation Chinese daughter, deals with her own internal conflict as well as an external conflict with her mother. The internal effort to find her true self is a lesson Jing-mei will have to discover, as she gets older. Being born of Chinese heritage, Jing-mei struggles with the burden of failing to meet her mothers expectations. She was never sure what she wanted to become. Throughout the story, Amy Tan represents the theme that parents cannot control their children, but can only guide them. Amy Tans Two Kinds first two paragraphs provides information about the mother’s beliefs. There are at least two things: (1) the voice of a narrator who does not quite share her mother’s opinion, and (2) a comic tone. When someone says, â€Å"My mother believed,† there is sure to be some difference between the speaker and the reported belief. The belief is further distanced by the fivefold repetition of â€Å"You could.† The comedy—perhaps better characterized as mild humor—is evident in the naivete or simplicity of ambitions: open a business, work for a company, retire, buy a house, become famous. Many people may feel superior (as the daughter herself does) to this mother, who apparently thinks that in America money and fame and even genius are readily available to all who apply themselves—but many people may also wish that their mother was as enthusiastic. The second paragraph adds a sort of comic topper. After all, when the mother says, in the first paragraph, â€Å"you could be anything you wanted to be in America,† the ambitions that she specifies are not impossible, but when in the second paragraph she says, â€Å"you can be prodigy too,† and â€Å"you can be best anything,† we realize that we are listening to an obsessed parent, a woman ferociously possessive of her daughter. Obsessions, of course, can be the stuff of tragedy—Macbeth, Brutus, and so forth—but obsessions are also the stuff of comedy. The third paragraph, with its references to the terrible losses in China, darkens the tone, but the fourth restores the comedy, with its vision of â€Å"a Chinese Shirley Temple.†Ã‚  The fifth paragraph is perhaps the most obviously funny so far. When Shirley Temple cries, the narrator’s mother says to her daughter: â€Å"You already know how. Don’t need talent for crying!† People—accustomed to thinking that everything in a textbook is deadly serious—easily miss the humor. They will definitely grasp the absurdity of the thought that â€Å"Nairobi† might be one way of pronouncing Helsinki, but they may miss the delightful comedy of Auntie Lindo pretending that Waverly’s abundant chess trophies are a nuisance (â€Å"all day I have no time to do nothing but dust off her winnings†), and even a deaf piano teacher may not strike them as comic. The story is comic (for example, in the mother’s single-mindedness, and in the daughter’s absurd hope that the recital may be going all right, even though she is hitting all the wrong notes) but is also serious (the conflict between the mother and the daughter, the mother’s passionate love, the daughter’s rebelliousness, and the daughter’s later recognition that her mother loved her deeply). It is serious, too, in the way it shows us (especially in the passage about the â€Å"old Chinese silk dresses†) the narrator’s deepening perception of her Chinese heritage. Humor and seriousness can be found in all types of family situations between parents and children.

Essay --

Imagine yourself strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that you can move nothing, not even your head. A sort of pad grips your head from behind, forcing you to look straight in front of you. This place is bigger than most of the cells you had been in. But you hardly notice your surroundings. All you notice is that there are two small tables straight in front of you, each covered with green baize. One is only a meter or two from you; the other is further away, near the door. For a moment you're alone; then the door opens and I come in. You asked me once what's in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that's in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world. The door opens again. A guard comes in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He sets it down on the further table. Because of the position in which I'm standing, you can't see what the thing is. The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it's some quite trivial thing, not even fatal. You move a little to one side, so that you have a better view of the thing on the table. It's an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it is something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it is three or four meters away from you, you could see that the cage is divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there's some kind of creature in each. They're scorpions. In your case, the worst thing in the world happens to be deathstalker scorpions. A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of you're not certain what, ha... ...ck panic takes hold of you. You're blind, helpless, mindless. [As didactically as ever:] It was a common punishment in ancient Persia. The mask is closing on your face. The wire brushes your cheek. And then -- no, it's not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. You're falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the scorpions. You're still strapped in the chair, but you'd fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars -- always away, away, away from the scorpions. You're light-years distant, but I'm still standing at your side. There's still the cold touch of wire against your cheek. But through the darkness that envelopes you, you hear another metallic click, and know that the cage door had clicked shut and not open. Wake up now.

Gender Differences in Discourse Essay

The ability to communicate with our fellow human beings makes us distinct from other living beings. The chapter has made it very clear that speaking is not conversation. Conversation is a collaborative effort by both the speaker and the listener. Our success much depends on how well we can interact with people around us. It much depends upon understanding certain factors called ‘social dynamics’ in conversation. In the essay â€Å"Women Talk Too Much† Janet Holmes makes it very clear that it is a wrong notion to think that women talk more than men. She says it is an assumption based on stereotypes. On the other hand, she says that it is men who talk more. There is no proof to say that men are biologically programmed to talk more than women. It is just the social conditions that promoted the wrong notion that boys are more active than girls and they talk more. She says it is entirely disagreeable. I find quite interesting to know that it is boys who interact more in the class rooms than the girls. Then, the author claims, how it can be said that women talk more than men In the second essay of the chapter, Tony Kornheiser makes a distinction in the communication style of women and that of men. He feels that women are very particular about everything and they have more to say than men have. He makes a point saying that women do not think life is as simple as men believe it to be. A conversation that turns into a lecture is definitely boring as Deborah Tannen points out in the essay â€Å"I’ll Explain It to You†. The most frustrating experience for anyone is when a conversation turns into a lecture. I feel it is not only boring to women but also equally tedious to men. There has been much literature on gender biased language and there is a gradual change in the use of language to sound neutral. Ronald Macaulay also agrees with Janet Holmes and says that many of the notions are myth and they have no validity scientifically speaking. It is rather social conditioning that has played a key role in imparting opinions that have no basis. Clive Thompson’s essay on how computer software can identify accurately whether the writer is a man or woman is quite interesting, His questions the many of the commonly held ideas about the differences between the two sexes. (407 words) Chapter6: Media Speak. What we know about the world is from media only. Our perception of the world is influenced by the media which presents it. The billions of dollars spent on TV ads clearly indicate the power that the media enjoys. Undoubtedly, the advertisements that come on television and newspapers and magazines have tremendous influence on us. Within a span of a century there is a great change in the media. Now the world is increasingly dependent on oral media where as it was mostly written word in the beginning of the last century. With the aim of reaching more number of audiences, the quality of language used in TV news and shows has become very low. Neil Postman and Steve Powers, rightly point out that the dependence on the image has made a great shift in news making. The highly quality visuals have replaced good language with low level popular language. They argue that it is not just language but also our views and opinions about the world are getting corrupted. The general saying is â€Å"a picture is worth a thousand words† but in the present days when news is re-created or re-presented, it is equally true to say that â€Å"one word is worth a thousand pictures. † There is little doubt that the language used by the media is aimed at creating sensations to attract more audience. Then, I do believe that it is not exactly what happened i. e. news. The article ‘All the World in Pictures’ is very interesting and thought provoking. It has clearly explained how the language is used in mass media. It is aptly said that ‘Advertising is the driving force of consumer economy’. The world is filled with advertisements. Wherever there are people, there are advertisements. They appeal to all our weakness creating a world of fancy with eternal youth, power, enriched beauty, immediate happiness, and fulfillment of our inner needs. I feel the use of language in creating such emotional appeals is quite amazing. Advertising plays much on the psychology of people. A small fifteen second ad can effectively tempt the people appealing to their emotions by making fantastic appeals and promises. The article â€Å"With these Words, I can Sell You Anything† is very enlightening. It has made it clear how they twist the language to send their message effectively. It is a finely engineered language that creates strong images on the minds of audience. I have found it very exciting to know the how the advertisers play on the people with their language. (419 words) Chapter7: Censorship and Free Speech Freedom of speech is fundamental to American democracy. It enables every American to freely express his ideas, opinions and beliefs. Any limits to the freedom of speech are seen as a threat to the rights of Americans. It is interesting to note that the discussion lays emphasis on the equality in enjoying one’s rights. No man or woman has the right to hurt the feelings or sentiments of others. It is by respecting others rights that we can enjoy our rights well. The censorship is against the rights given in the constitution. However, it is required in some areas. The censorship and books, biased language and hate speech and certain limits on campus speech have lead to interesting debate. The first amendment has not only given the right to express ideas freely but it also has given the right to know others’ ideas. The censorship on books has been a much debated issue with different opinions. It is beyond my understanding why some books are banned totally and some are censored. When a book raises questions that lead to controversy and debate, it will help people to know what exactly the truth is. Banning is not the solution for it. The controversy over Harry Potter books, which have attracted millions of children all over the world, seems pointless. Censorship on books is dangerous as it blocks all new creative and original ideas. Censorship on biased language and hate speech is quite useful as it raises many questions in the practical use of language. It is very difficult and almost impossible to classify what makes a hate speech and biased language. I feel it is highly impossible to make a law in the absence of any valid principles regarding what comes under biased language and hate speech. Sometimes, the words may be good but the tone in which they are delivered could be full of hatred. Censorship on free speech on the campus has some good in it, as it reduces misunderstanding among the students who come different parts of the world. The campus is a place where tolerance is mostly needed. The rules prohibiting certain speech acts is good for the minority students. But it does not guarantee that no racist speech is ever heard on the campuses. (378 words) Chapter -8 The English Language Debate The debate whether English should be made official language of the US or not, is very interesting bringing out valid arguments on both the sides. The United States, the nation of immigrants, respects cultural differences of people coming from different countries. Respecting other languages, the US has not declared English as the official language. I find it very great quality of the American people for their respect other cultures. It shows their multi cultural tolerance and national unity. The unity of American people has come more from their like mindedness in political and social values and self respect than from having one language. The discussion on what is Standard English has made it clear how different forces work on language. Robert MacNeil has explored well what makes American English and what exactly it is. The argument for Standard English has its own merits with clear focus on clarity in thinking and what we are saying. It argues for care and caution in the use of language as it is central for identifying an individual. If a person neglects his language and uses it causally, it will not help him or her in the long run. As the author has rightly put it â€Å"casualization† everything in culture has led to casual attitude to language use as well. The ‘growing informality’ of language is one of the major concerns of linguists. The scholars and grammarians who prescribe rules on how language should be used are rightly called â€Å"Prescriptivists. † Especially, John Simon, who is called the Prince of Prescriptivists, holds the view that the present day language is poor, unhealthy and hopeless. He represents those who argue for perfect use of language as it helps you to communicate clearly what you are. It is with the use of language only that a person can show his distinction. If the distinction is lost, he or she will be among many who can not say clearly what they mean. It becomes a serious challenge. I feel there should be certain principles which can not be sacrificed in the use of language. The â€Å"Descriptivists†, on the other hand, just describe how the language is used by people. They do not dictate any rules regarding how English should be used. They are permissive and tolerate the new expressions and the informality in expressions. They argue that a language is called a living language only when it is spoken. When it is spoken it is natural to have changes in the language as no two people can pronounce the same word in the same way. They are free to allow new words into English as change the law of life and of language. It shows tolerance towards people who speak the same language with some regional differences. There are many examples when the language of the Black people is accepted by the grammarians and included in the dictionaries. It helps the language to grow and reflect the present day culture. The fears about what will happen to American English seem justified, but nobody can stop the changes that take place in society. I feel the changes in English are an indication of changes in society, and language is just reflecting the same. (534 words)

Cultural practices Essay

1. ) The article helped me gain a deeper understanding about how varied the effects of a drug can be to different patients. Whenever I see how hospital doctors with incoming patients ask what the details of their patient are, I used to think that mentioning the person’s ethnicity is not very important and I have always wondered why it was mentioned anyway. Now I believe that it is actually very important as the doctor administering specific drugs would have to cross reference them with the patient’s ethnicity in order to make sure that a drug that causes adverse effects for people of the patient’s ethnicity would not be administered and appropriate substitutes can be sought. 2. ) The article through the results that it presented gave me a different way of seeing the human body. Despite obvious outer differences such as skin color, height and build, and so on, I’ve always thought that the inner-workings of the human body are constant with everyone and that our reactions to medicines would be the same regardless of trivial differences. The article made me see that the differences that I once thought as trivial where medicine is concerned are not so trivial at all. There was thorough explanation of how cultural practices over long periods of time can alter respective physiological characteristics of people in such a way as to not only change external features but internal features as well, including reactions to different types of medicine. 3. ) Yes, the article has made me see that cultural and ethnic differences extend beyond superficialities and within the intricacies of humanc. It has changed my perspective in approaching problems concerning the applicability of medicines to humans such that I would now consider ethnicity and cultural practices as some of the factors that can significantly affect medical reactions. I believe that this has broadened my beliefs and made me better equipped in handling situations that I will face later on both in my education and in my career. Reference Does Ethnicity Influence Adverse Reactions to Drugs? Retrieved June 4, 2008 from: http://www. aafp. org/afp/20061015/tips/15. html

The Battle Between The Spanish Armada And The British Fleet Essays

The Battle Between The Spanish Armada And The British Fleet Essays The Battle Between the Spanish Armada and the British Fleet ~1588~ In the later part of the 16th century, Spain was the major international power and either ruled, colonized, or exercised influence over much of the known world. Spanish power was at it's height and Spain's leader, King Philip II, pledged to conquer the Protestant heretics in England that began as a result of the Reformation. Philip held personal hostility towards England's Queen Elizabeth I and was desirous of eliminating a major sea-going rival for economic reasons. Elizabeth encouraged Sir Francis Drake and other English seamen to raid Spanish ships and towns to invest in some of their wealth. The English also began to aid the Dutch Protestants who were rebelling against Spanish rule. The Treaty of Nonsuch (1585) along with damaging raids by Drake against the Spanish commerce finally convinced Philip that a direct invasion of England was necessary. Philip wanted to restore England to Catholicism, keep his wealth he discovered, and prove that his country is still looked upon as all-powerful. King Philip disliked Elizabeth with a passion. He tried to plot against her ages ago with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, in 1568. She was beheaded in 1587 for she pose a threat to the queen and England's safety. Finally Philip decided he had to do something about it himself. He drew up a flawless plan that wouldn't underrating England's ability to defend herself, Philip organized a brilliant fleet, which he called his Spanish Armada. It was called 'Invincible', the fleet of unprecedented size and strength. His Armada consisted of about 130 ships from his Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets, from the Portuguese navy and his allies, with as many as 8,000 seamen and possibly 19,000 soldiers. These ships were to join 30,000 troops who had been fighting in the Spanish Netherlands under Philip's commander, the Duke of Parma. Don ?lvaro de Baz?n, Marquis of Santa Cruz, who had initially organized the Armada, did not live to command it. His successor, Alonso P?rez de Guzm?n, Duke of Medina Sidonia, was no less intelligent and courageous. The men were inexperienced and their knowledge of ships and battles was poor. Their ships were mainly line-of-battle ships, and the rest being mostly transports and light craft. They were conscious that even their best craft were slower and less reliable than those of the English and less well armed with weapons, but they counted on being able to force boarding actions if the English offered battle. The Armada set sail from Lisbon on May 9, 1588, but gales forced it back soon after. The voyage was not resumed until July 22. Since November 1587 the English and the Dutch had been aware of Philip's intentions. To prevent a juncture of Parma's army with the Armada, they had several troops patrolling the Netherlands coast. The English fleet was under command of Charles Howard, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham Ships were anchored at Plymouth on the English Channel to blockade and destroy the Armada before it left the Spanish coast. On July 29, 1588, the wind direction made this impossible and the Armada was already first sighted off the Scilly Isles, near the coast of Cornwall in southwestern England. The Armada reached the Strait of Dover on August 61 (Having already entered the English Channel on July 30) and anchored at Calais, France. This is where Medina Sidonia had planned to meet Parma in Flanders. The Dutch gunboats prevented the barges from meeting the Armada and this defect in their strategy was to prove disastrous. In the early hours of August 7-8, the English launched eight fire ships2 into the Spanish fleet, forcing the Spanish ships to cut or slip their cables, thus losing their anchors, and stand out to sea to escape the flames. The 'Invincible' Armada's formation was thus completely broken. At dawn on the 8th about 60 English ships attacked the disorganized Spanish ships off the French port of Gravelines. Three Spanish ships were sunk or driven ashore, and the others were badly battered. During all the battles, the wind direction and speed and waves and currents had a great effect on the movement of the ships. Both the west wind and the English fleet now prevented

School English Essay

School English Essay School English Essay School English Essay: Choosing Custom Writing Service As a rule, students do not like writing school English essay, especially those, who were not born in English speaking country. This fact is simple to interpret, as while you are writing your school English essays, you have to care at least, about several things at one and the same time. The first one is the sense and content of your school English essay itself. As any other kind of essay, it should be interesting, creative, informative, and actual. The second is the grammar and lexis used in your school English essays. It is rather difficult to write in a language, which is not native for you. That is why school English essay is considered to be a rather complicated task. However, nowadays, you do not have to trouble yourself while trying to write school English essays. If you feel that school English essay is not your strong point, however, you are a hard working and caring about your grades student, do not fall into a risk and order your school English essay online. Before ordering your school English essay, choose only such a source which can be trusted. Of course, it is not simple to understand whether this or that custom writing site is a professional one until you try its service, but still there are several things you have to pay attention to. The first thing you can do while choosing the site where to buy your school English essay is to ask for the advise your group mates. Believe, the number of students who use different custom essay writing sites is just huge, that is why you are certain to find some necessary information. You can also search for such a site by yourself. While choosing one, do pay attention to the price of servicing. If it is going to be too cheap or even free of charge, you are running the risk to come across internet cheating. You see, to write a professional school English essay takes some particular times and some certain efforts. That is why if they are going to off er you school English essay for the miserable price, either they will provide you with the low quality essay full of mistakes and other pleasant surprises or they will sell you the essay which is already sold to the hundreds of people as well. Do not economize on your grade; it may influence your future. Better, use the service of custom writing sites which offer acceptable and moderate price for their servicing, as for example, our site.

Corporations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Corporations - Essay Example This is particularly the reason behind the constant application of law within the systems accepted by the organization as per guided by the local governments seeing through the operations of the said business groups. In this side of the situation, the fact that corporation has the advantage of enjoying the limited liability guideline is one of the most important laws that had been created to at least assist in the process of incorporating legalities in the business operations of the organization within and even outside the territories of the said business group. However, to be able to understand the matter well, it is first important to know what limited liability actually stands for and how much it naturally affects the ventures of the business as an entity in the field of international commerce systems. Most people are not willing to risk everything to go into business. Yet for a business to grow and prosper as well as create abundance for the owners of the said entities, many people would have the need to be willing to invest money in it. The way to solve this particular issue among hopeful entrepreneurs was to create an artificial being, one particular entity that existed only in the eyes of the law- a business group, a corporation that is noted as an individual that has its personal rights and personal advantages and disadvantages of existence. In this phase of the writing, the advantages of corporal creations are to be discussed. Advantage to have more money for investment Limited liability Advantages to business size Advantages to having perpetual life Advantages to engage in the ease of ownership changes Advantages in easing the drawing of talented employees Advantages in creating separations of the corporation ownership from the management As observed, one of the most important advantages that the corporation has from the other forms of businesses is that of the limited liability advantage of the organization. Likely, this advantage involves the responsibility held up towards the owners that are only in balance with the amount of finances that they have invested in the business. It is considered that this particular advantage is natural gift to the formation of corporation. The safety of the monetary investment of the owners is well protected through the provision of the limited liability advantages of the creation of corporations. Having businesses like this is a huge advantage for many entrepreneurs at present especially during the existing economic turmoil. Corporation owners are the ones having the best possible advantages in this scenario. Since corporations are able to extend their business sizes, their profits could naturally increase without necessarily increasing the amount of investment that they have primari ly contributed to the establishment of the organization. Hence, as a result, if in any case the business fails, the amount of financing contribution that is lost by the owner could only amount to the investment that he or she has further used as a capital for the establishment