Acceptance of Technologies

We live in a time change. Gelatt (1995) stated that change itself has changed. Change has become so rapid, so turbulent, and so unpredictable that is now called "white water" change (p.10). Murphy & Terry (1998a) indicated the current of change move so quickly that they destroy what was considered the norm in the past, and by doing so, create new opportunities. But, there is a natural tendency for organizations to resist change. Wrong conceptions about the use of technology limit innovation and threaten teachers' job and security (Zuber-Skerritt, 1994). Instructors are tend not to use technologies that require substantially more preparation time, and it is tough to provide instructors and learners access to technologies that are easy to use (Herschbach, 1994).

Engaging in Computer-assisted Language Learning is a continuing challenge that requires time and commitment. As we approach the 21st century, we realize that technology as such is not the answer to all our problems. What really matters is how we use technology. Computers can/will never substitute teachers but they offer new opportunities for better language practice. They may actually make the process of language learning significantly richer and play a key role in the reform of a country's educational system. The next generation of students will feel a lot more confident with information technology than we do. As a result, they will also be able to use the Internet to communicate more effectively, practice language skills more thoroughly and solve language learning problems more easily.

How the MinuteSort Test is Administered

The Sort Benchmark Page run by ACM Turing Award winner Jim Gray sets the ground rules for the sort tests. The “Ground rules” section of the Web site states:

· Must sort to and from operating system files on secondary storage.

· No raw disk benchmarks allowed since we are trying to test the IO subsystem.

· File or device striping (RAID 0) are allowed (encouraged) to get bandwidth.

· The output file must be created as part of the sort.

· Time includes the launching of the sort program.

The Benchmark Page FAQ includes additional details and guidelines along with source code for the data-generating and checking programs to be used.

Once a year, an award is given. The Benchmark Page describes this process:

· Trophies are awarded each year at ACM SIGMOD.

· Entrants can contact any previous winner and get their result "certified" by April 1.

· Entries must include a document describing the algorithm and the hardware in enough detail so that others could reproduce the result.

The 40-GB NeoSort record was audited by Chris Nyberg, representing Ordinal Technology, the last winner of the Daytona Minute Sort benchmark award (2004). Jim Gray confirmed that 40 GB is the fastest sort for the Minute Sort benchmark to date in the commercial category.

Inhibitors to High-Performance Sort on the Mainframe

Mainframes have several limitations that keep them from matching the results described earlier. Before delving deeper, here is a review of the key elements that made this record-breaking sort possible:

· Multiple processors

· Multiple disks

· High bandwidth between processors and disks

· Large amounts of memory

· Software that can take advantage of all the above

For all of the hardware elements listed above, hardware for the mainframe costs several times more than equivalent hardware for the Windows Server operating system. The difference in cost is partly historical, but it also is due to the more complex infrastructure that has developed for mainframes.

Due to the high costs associated with mainframe environments, companies do not necessarily have the option of adding more hardware to solve the problem of finding batch windows long enough to run large sorts. Instead, companies must try to manage system resources to optimize sorts without compromising the performance of other applications. This practice leads to a series of tradeoffs in processor load, paging activity, I/O activity, disk utilization, and elapsed time.

Ways to improve mainframe sort performance include DFSORT features such as:

· Hipersorting, which uses Hiperspaces for sorting. Hiperspaces use expanded or central storage and can significantly speed up a sort process. However, Hipersorting uses a lot of CPU bandwidth, and the increased paging results in a total reduction of system performance.

· Dataspace sorting allows sorting to occur completely within main storage, and thus eliminates the need to write intermediate data to disk. The limitation of this method is that a dataspace size limit is usually about 2 GB, which precludes the sorting of large files. This method also incurs a large paging expense.

· Cache Fast Write allows data to be read and written to and from work data sets at cache speed.

· Sequential disk striping can also improve elapsed time performance.

Of course, building the hardware infrastructure is only part of the task; the other part is building the sorting application. DFSORT cannot take advantage of parallel processors, which limits its ability to scale to the levels of a Windows Server–based solution. Hardware that supports Windows Server and the Windows Server software architecture have evolved together so that sorting across multiple processors can be readily achieved.

In summary, achieving record-breaking performance from mainframes is unlikely because of:

· Expense

· The effort involved

· Systems architecture limitations

· Sort utilities limited to single processors

Server

A. 1 x PRIMEQUEST 480 Server

- 32 x Intel Itanium2 1.6 GHz

- Memory: 127 GB

- FUJITSU SAL_B Version 1.11, 12/6/2005

- SMBIOS Version 2.3

- HAL Version 5.2.3790.1830 (srv03_sp1rtm.050324-1447)

B. Microsoft Windows Server 2003

- Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems

- Service Pack 1

- Build 3790

C. VERITAS Storage Foundation and High Availability Version 4.3

Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003

BMW recall could extend to 350,000 cars globally

BERLIN: BMW AG says the recall of nearly 200,000 in the US to fix leaks that could develop in the power braking system might also affect another 150,000 cars of the same series around the globe.

Spokesman Frank Strebe said Friday there are globally 345,000 of the 5 Series, 6 Series and 7 Series vehicles powered by V8 and V12 engines and almost 6,000 Rolls Royce Phantom models that could be affected by the problem.

But he said that there were no plans yet for recalls in countries outside the US

He added the company went ahead with the recall in the US because it's the biggest market concerned and because of the legal situation there.

Strebe stressed there have been no reports of accidents or injuries.