用内核级的噪声注入来刻画应用程序对操作系统干扰的敏感性

操作系统噪声是限制应用程序可扩展性的主要因素。很多研究试图采用用户层的机制来量化噪声的来源和影响。本篇论文描述了一种基于内核的噪声注入机制，并重点研究应用程序对各种噪声模式的敏感性。我们介绍了在Catamount轻载内核上噪声注入框架的实现，并展示了当节点数达到上万个时系统对应用程序产生的各类影响。我们的研究结果证明了噪声（不同频率和持续时间）产生原因的重要性，     

Are Small Recipients Overlooked by Sponsors? An Empirical Note

This note presents an analysis of data collected on the revenue structure of cultural institutions in Berlin and Hamburg, with a focus on sponsoring. Ex ante there are some reasons why firms, when giving to the arts, might favour large recipients, but also some why they could favour smaller ones. For our sample we find that income from sponsoring per visitor is larger for smaller cultural institutions. Finally, we argue that these results can be considered as evidence for a at least partly altruistic motivation of sponsors.     

Changes in the basic ICT skills of freshmen between 2005 and 2009: Who’s catching up and who’s still behind?

In the last decade, ICT use has expanded enormously in most Western countries. In line with this development, we hypothesised that freshmen at university would not only have mastered more ICT skills, but would also use computers more often than their counterparts of 5 years previously. To compare students’ opinions and behaviour between 2005 and 2009, responses to two online questionnaires (N = 714 in 2005 and N = 1529 in 2009) offered at a large university were compared. The main variables of the Technology Acceptance Model (as well as facilitating factors, study motivation and some contextual variables) were used as predictors to explore the possible changes between 2005 and 2009 in the mastering of 19 ICT skills, and the frequency of the use of computers for six different tasks. The results of the study show that freshmen became more proficient in some ICT skills, while proficiency in other skills did not change or even dropped. Gender is still an important factor to predict ICT skills and the frequency of using computers, but it is shown that for some skills female students have caught up with their male counterparts.