20080220

AMD opens up its cores-hopes to stimulate development of multi-threaded software

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2210036/amd-opens-cores

 

AMD's announcement that it is making its performance library available as open-source code should stimulate the development of multi-threaded software.

 

The library contains more than 3,200 software routines which can be used by developers to tailor software to take advantage of multi-core chips. The open source version of the library will be known as Framewave 1.0.

 

The library will also be compatible with Intel's libraries, meaning that developers can write one set of code which will be optimised for CPUs from both companies.

 

By allowing full access to the library, AMD hopes that developers will more readily integrate multi-threading capabilities into their applications to allow software to take better advantage of the latest quad-core chips.

 

Margaret Lewis, director of commercial solutions and software strategy at AMD, told vnunet.com that, while some developers have easily adapted their code to the new chips, others have not been so eager to embrace multi-threading.

 

Lewis explained that applications written for large multi-processor systems are much easier to optimise.

 

"A lot of applications that come over from the server world have been written for multi-core systems," she said. "When you get out of that range you get into code that is not multi-threaded by nature and it becomes a challenge."

 

AMD hopes that by giving developers unfettered access to the performance library, a new base of open source code will be developed which can be plugged into future applications.

 

However, Lewis does not see the move to multi-threaded code being a quick and painless process.

 

"I do not think anyone thought this was going to be instantaneous," she said. "It is easier for developers to create new code that is multi-threaded, so we think there is going to be a migration."

20080215

Guantanamo Comes to Main Street U.S.A.

(You got to watch this video!)When will we realize that if we allow the rights of some to be ignored, we ultimately harm ourselves? Today we are all at risk.The video is extremely disturbing and shows a female crime victim forceably stripped of her clothes by several police officers, including at least two male officers.

read more | digg story

20080213

Guantanamo Comes to Main Street U.S.A. (disturbing vodeo of police brutality)

(You got to watch this video!)When will we realize that if we allow the rights of some to be ignored, we ultimately harm ourselves? Today we are all at risk.The video is extremely disturbing and shows a female crime victim forceably stripped of her clothes by several police officers, including at least two male officers.

read more | digg story

20080211

Artificial sweeteners linked to weight gain

Artificial sweeteners linked to weight gain

Cutting the connection between sweets and calories may confuse the body, making it harder to regulate intake

WASHINGTON — Want to lose weight? It might help to pour that diet soda down the drain. Researchers have laboratory evidence that the widespread use of no-calorie sweeteners may actually make it harder for people to control their intake and body weight. The findings appear in the February issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, which is published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Psychologists at Purdue University’s Ingestive Behavior Research Center reported that relative to rats that ate yogurt sweetened with glucose (a simple sugar with 15 calories/teaspoon, the same as table sugar), rats given yogurt sweetened with zero-calorie saccharin later consumed more calories, gained more weight, put on more body fat, and didn’t make up for it by cutting back later, all at levels of statistical significance.

Authors Susan Swithers, PhD, and Terry Davidson, PhD, surmised that by breaking the connection between a sweet sensation and high-calorie food, the use of saccharin changes the body’s ability to regulate intake. That change depends on experience. Problems with self-regulation might explain in part why obesity has risen in parallel with the use of artificial sweeteners. It also might explain why, says Swithers, scientific consensus on human use of artificial sweeteners is inconclusive, with various studies finding evidence of weight loss, weight gain or little effect. Because people may have different experiences with artificial and natural sweeteners, human studies that don’t take into account prior consumption may produce a variety of outcomes.

Three different experiments explored whether saccharin changed lab animals’ ability to regulate their intake, using different assessments –the most obvious being caloric intake, weight gain, and compensating by cutting back.

The experimenters also measured changes in core body temperature, a physiological assessment. Normally when we prepare to eat, the metabolic engine revs up. However, rats that had been trained to respond using saccharin (which broke the link between sweetness and calories), relative to rats trained on glucose, showed a smaller rise in core body temperate after eating a novel, sweet-tasting, high-calorie meal. The authors think this blunted response both led to overeating and made it harder to burn off sweet-tasting calories.

“The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with a higher-calorie sugar,” the authors wrote.

The authors acknowledge that this outcome may seem counterintuitive and might not come as welcome news to human clinical researchers and health-care practitioners, who have long recommended low- or no-calorie sweeteners. What’s more, the data come from rats, not humans. However, they noted that their findings match emerging evidence that people who drink more diet drinks are at higher risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome, a collection of medical problems such as abdominal fat, high blood pressure and insulin resistance that put people at risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Why would a sugar substitute backfire? Swithers and Davidson wrote that sweet foods provide a “salient orosensory stimulus” that strongly predicts someone is about to take in a lot of calories. Ingestive and digestive reflexes gear up for that intake but when false sweetness isn’t followed by lots of calories, the system gets confused. Thus, people may eat more or expend less energy than they otherwise would.

The good news, Swithers says, is that people can still count calories to regulate intake and body weight. However, she sympathizes with the dieter’s lament that counting calories requires more conscious effort than consuming low-calorie foods.

Swithers adds that based on the lab’s hypothesis, other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K, which also taste sweet but do not predict the delivery of calories, could have similar effects. Finally, although the results are consistent with the idea that humans would show similar effects, human study is required for further demonstration.

 

20080207

Saudi woman arrested for meeting man

Do you think Laura Bush will start a campaign to support the women of Saudi Arabia now? I don't thinks so==========================================================A BUSINESSWOMAN was detained and strip-searched by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man, taboo in the country.Yesterday's incident came just days after a UN report blasted the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom for widespread discrimination against women and as a UN expert on women's rights began a visit to the country.It also came as a Saudi princess announced a scholarship to promote women in journalism, saying "women journalists are best placed to promote cultural communication between men and women in Saudi society".The English-language Arab News today quoted a 40-year-old financial consultant, named only as Yara, as saying she was arrested by members of the powerful Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.She said she was holding a business meeting with the man in a branch of Starbucks in Riyadh, in a section reserved for families.

read more | digg story

20080204

Fwd: Want a bigger baby-maker?

Of all the smaps I have received, this one was the funniest one. I really don't understand what these guys were thinking, but sure it is funny.

gautam_fms@straightteeth.com wrote:
From: <gautam_fms@straightteeth.com>
To: <ny_farhad@yahoo.com>
Subject: Want a bigger baby-maker?
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 14:02:13 +0530

Our experts advise <web site removed>



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