The danger of "multi-tasking"

The Algebra of Multi-tasking

Modelling multi-tasking behaviour is an important phase of real-time system design. It is shown how task scheduling principles can be captured in a CCS-based process algebra via extensions for both asymmetric interleaving, to model intraprocessor scheduling decisions, and for asynchronous communication, to model interprocessor precedence constraints. Examples are given of task preemption, block...

Multi-tasking for TinyOS

Tasks in TinyOS execute non-preemptively and run to completion, forcing programmers to keep individual tasks short and spread lengthy operations across multiple tasks – a major divergence from conventional programming paradigms. This report documents our attempt to incorporate multi-tasking into TinyOS and its subsequent effect on power consumption of “motes”. We succeeded in modifying the Tiny...

Contests with multi-tasking

Glucocorticoids: exemplars of multi-tasking.

Well over 80 years ago Philip Smith described the beneficial clinical effects of adrenocortical extracts in animal models of adrenal insufficiency. In the ensuing years, scientists across the globe have sought to understand the mechanisms by which adrenal hormones and their synthetic analogues produce their complex and varied actions. Particular attention has focused on the glucocorticoids, par...

Cell Cycle: The Art of Multi-Tasking

Separase is the protease that cleaves the cohesive link between sister chromatids to trigger chromosome segregation in mitosis and meiosis. This enzyme is known to orchestrate additional mitotic events and we now gain new insight into how it promotes cytokinesis in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.