“Chip manufacturers are now creating processors that have a ‘fused architecture,’ meaning that they include CPUs and GPUs on a single chip,” says Dr. Huiyang Zhou, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who co-authored a paper on the research. “This approach decreases manufacturing costs and makes computers more energy efficient. However, the CPU cores and GPU cores still work almost exclusively on separate functions. They rarely collaborate to execute any given program, so they aren’t as efficient as they could be. That’s the issue we’re trying to resolve.”

GPUs were initially designed to execute graphics programs, and they are capable of executing many individual functions very quickly. CPUs, or the “brains” of a computer, have less computational power – but are better able to perform more complex tasks.

“Our approach is to allow the GPU cores to execute computational functions, and have CPU cores pre-fetch the data the GPUs will need from off-chip main memory,” Zhou says. “This is more efficient because it allows CPUs and GPUs to do what they are good at. GPUs are good at performing computations. CPUs are good at making decisions and flexible data retrieval.”

In other words, CPUs and GPUs fetch data from off-chip main memory at approximately the same speed, but GPUs can execute the functions that use that data more quickly. So, if a CPU determines what data a GPU will need in advance, and fetches it from off-chip main memory, that allows the GPU to focus on executing the functions themselves - and the overall process takes less time.

In preliminary testing, Zhou’s team found that its new approach improved fused processor performance by an average of 21.4 percent. This technique has not been possible in the past, Zhou adds, because CPUs and GPUs were located on separate chips.

By combining the processing power of GPUs and CPUs, researchers were able to boost processor performance by an average of 21 percent. Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

In a paper published in the American Chemical Society's Nano Letters, the ORNL-led team demonstrated metallic conductivity in a ferroelectric film that otherwise acts as an insulator. This phenomenon of an insulator-metal transition was predicted more than 40 years ago by theorists but has eluded experimental proof until now.

"This finding unambiguously identifies a new conduction channel that percolates through the insulating matrix of the ferroelectric, which opens potentially exciting possibilities to 'write' and 'erase' circuitry with nanoscale dimensions," said lead author Peter Maksymovych of ORNL's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences.

From an applied perspective, the ability to use only an electric field as a knob that tunes both the magnitude of metallic conductivity in a ferroelectric and the type of charge carriers is particularly intriguing. Doing the latter in a semiconductor would require a change of the material composition.

"Not only can we turn on metallic conductivity, but if you keep changing the bias dials, you can control the behavior very precisely," Maksymovych said. "And the smaller the nanodomain, the better it conducts. All this occurs in the exact same position of the material, and we can go from an insulator to a better metal or a worse metal in a heartbeat or faster. This is potentially attractive for applications, and it also leads to interesting fundamental questions about the exact mechanism of metallic conductivity."

Although the researchers focused their study on a well-known ferroelectric film called lead-zirconate titanate, they expect their observations will hold true for a broader array of ferroelectric materials.

"We also anticipate that extending our studies onto multiferroics, mixed-phase and anti-ferroelectrics will reveal a whole family of previously unknown electronic properties, breaking new ground in fundamentals and applications alike," said co-author and ORNL senior scientist Sergei Kalinin.

ORNL researchers used piezoresponse force microscopy to demonstrate the first evidence of metallic conductivity in ferroelectric nanodomains. A representative nanodomain is shown in the PFM image above. Image: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

"At Comcast, we strive to minimize passing expenses on to our customers. However, from time to time it is necessary to increase certain fees in order to keep pace with the costs of running our business," Comcast says on its website here. "In the last several years, we have made significant upgrades to our network, customer equipment and software in order to provide a fast and reliable experience for our Business Class customers."

Comcast is the largest home Internet service provider in the United States. It also offers cable television and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers. In January 2011, the Philadelphia based company acquired a majority stake in media conglomerate NBC Universal. Comcast has significant holding in several cable networks, including E! Entertainment Television, G4, Style Network, and The Golf Channel. The company is active in 39 states and the District of Columbia.

Comcast Online was launched in 1996 to manage operations revolving around broadband Internet service. After acquiring Sarasota Online, the largest Internet service provider in Florida, the company quickly expanded into over 30 cities. Today, Comcast Online has about 17.8 million Internet subscribers. Comcast holds the Consumerist 2010 Worst Company In America award, which led competitor Verizon to publicly congratulate its rival via the Verizon Twitter feed. Comcast acknowledged the “award” immediately and promised to improve its customer service.

Current maritime regulations and policies [in the EU] consider only physical aspects of security and safety. The agency recommends that States and organizations should focus on targeted maritime sector awareness and cyber security training of shipping companies, port authorities, and national cyber security offices.

“Cyber threats are a growing menace, spreading to all industry sectors that are relying on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems,” the agency says in a press release. “Recent deliberate disruptions of critical automation systems, such as Stuxnet, prove that cyber-attacks have a significant impact on critical infrastructures. Disruption of these ICT capabilities may have disastrous consequences for the EU Member States’ governments and social wellbeing. The need to ensure ICT robustness against cyber-attacks is thus a key challenge at national and pan-European level.”

Due to the high complexity of information technology, it is major challenge to ensure adequate maritime cyber security. A common strategy and development of good practices for the technology development and implementation of ICT systems would therefore ensure “security by design” for all critical maritime ICT components. “We strongly recommend a holistic, risk-based approach; assessment of maritime specific cyber risks, as well as identification of all critical assets within this sector,” enisa says.

As maritime governance is fragmented between different levels (i.e. international, European, national), the International Maritime Organization together with the EU Commission and the Member States should align international and EU policies in this sector. Better information exchange and statistics on cyber security could help insurers to improve their actuarial models, reduce risks, and thus offer better contractual insurance conditions for the maritime sector. Information exchange platforms should be also considered and by Member States to better communications.

“This report positions maritime cyber security as a logical and crucial next step in the global protection efforts of ICT infrastructure,” says Professor Dr. Udo Helmbrecht, executive director of enisa.

Maritime cyber security awareness within the EU is currently low to non-existent, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency (enisa). Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

"Uniquely positioned within their enterprises, CIOs are at the fulcrum of business and technology, and they are the only executives with sufficient visibility and potential capability to address the challenges posed by today's euro zone crisis," said David Furlonger, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "Business leaders are crying out for CIOs to demonstrate more effectively the capability of IT and, specifically, to add value to the business. Therefore, this crisis also presents CIOs with an opportunity to make substantial and bold steps to meet CEO demands, and demonstrate the importance and true value of IT."

Most enterprises and their IT departments are burdened with significant numbers of bureaucratic processes, and today's market conditions require business and government executives to radically restructure their business practices. "Market conditions require CIOs to help develop a working environment that promotes speed, agility and adaptability - without sacrificing accountability," Gartner vice president and analyst Andrea Di Maio said. "Change management capabilities will be critical. The foundation to achieve effective change management will demand information, analytics, HR flexibility and a more decentralized command-and-control management structure."

The costs of and access to capital across Europe will likely continue to worsen until there is a significant redress in structural imbalances between countries and organizations. Unwillingness or inability to write off debt and restructure public- and private-sector balance sheets is a substantial barrier to market efficiency. Lines of credit will likely become uncertain or removed, forcing corporations to reduce inventory. "In this situation, CIOs will face zero-growth budgeting at best, and substantial reductions in both the investment capital and the operational budget made available to run the business at worst," Furlonger said. "If a market meltdown occurs, then critical resources and supplies may be at risk. CIOs and other executives must develop contingency plans to ensure multiple backups."

Millions of people are out of work in Europe. Formal government austerity packages and informal corporate restrictions on salaries, benefits and working conditions, combined with high costs of living, are stressing workforces. This situation is compounded by retirement funding shortfalls, extensions in the working age and loss of benefits. "CIOs and business executives face significant HR issues in terms of rewarding and motivating staff, securing funds to hire appropriate new talent, and dealing with the personnel hardships of individuals entering the work environment, which impair productivity," Di Maio said. "They must also plan for retention issues of foreign workers moving to better opportunities or the removal of non-EU work permits and visas in response to political backlash from rapidly rising unemployment, resulting in a 'brain drain'."

The capital markets (and many corporations) believe that the risk of government and counterparty default is substantial. Receivables management is being stressed, and the likelihood of internal and external fraud rises, Gartner says. "Prior to the crisis, enterprises were already challenged to identify enterprise wide risks in a holistic fashion to link those risks to the performance of the business and to manage risk in a time-effective manner," Furlonger said. "Now, the CIO - and corporate treasurer, head trader, CFO and others - need to ask questions such as, 'Can existing risk models accommodate alternatives to the lack of historical data (in many cases, as much as three years of back data is required) necessary for regression testing/yield curve analysis of hedges, and for stressing asset and liability portfolios in the event of a redenomination in all or part of their asset and liability portfolio?"

"Unlike recent economic difficulties, today's crisis has the potential to totally undermine the euro zone, the whole EU and beyond," said Di Maio. "Spurred on by the pervasiveness of the Internet, the crisis negatively affects every enterprise or individual doing business in or with the region. The CIO's top responsibility is to guarantee business continuity."