Operating Systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Operating Systems - Essay Example Although operating systems like Linux or FreeBSD show better performance having 64 MB of RAM, Windows XP is able to run on the same hardware. Laskin (n.d.) writes that 128Mb was simply not enough to allow Windows XP to operate efficiently. He observed an average increase in speed of 25% between 128Mb and 256Mb. The next step up in his investigation was 512Mb. Here the increase was less dramatic but still quite noticeable, about a 5% increase in speed depending on the test. Whilst extra memory can affect the overall speed, Lackey (n.d.) writes, it can also make for smoother operation depending on the task in hand. Basic word processing and Internet access usually require no more then 128-256Mb of RAM. More demanding tasks can soon show the inadequacy of low amounts of RAM. Graphics and Sound are the two memory consumers. Complex documents containing graphics or embedded charts and especially more sophisticated PowerPoint presentations are much easier to handle with between 256and 512Mb. Databases start to benefit too at this level. In fact, the more RAM the better when it comes to these as they can keep their temporary tables in memory speeding up performance immensely. The real memory consuming tasks include 3D work, both CAD (Computer Aided Design) and more generalized computer graphics, real time video editing and real world modeling such as water flow calculations. Here the sky is the limit with 1Gb or more not being at all unreasonable. Most people who Lackey (n.d.) knows work with 3D graphics professionally tend to run at their systems maximum, usually 4Gb. Addressing of Memory in Windows XP As Nichol (2006) writes, a program instruction in a modern operating system on an Intel 386 or later CPU can address up to 4GB of memory, using its full 32 bits. This is normally far more than the RAM of the machine. So the hardware provides for programs to operate in terms of as much as they wish of this full 4GB space as Virtual Memory, those parts of the program and data which are currently active being loaded into Physical Random Access Memory (RAM). The processor itself then translates ('maps') the virtual addresses from an instruction into the correct physical equivalents, doing this on the fly as the instruction is executed. The processor manages the mapping in terms of pages of 4 Kilobytes each - a size that has implications for managing virtual memory by the system. Page File By Nichol (2006), only those parts of the program and data that are currently in active use need to be held in physical RAM. Other parts are then held in a page file (in Windows NT versions including Windows 2000 and XP: pagefile.sys). When a program tries to access some address that is not currently in physical RAM, it generates an interrupt, called a Page Fault. This asks the system to retrieve the 4 KB page containing the address from the page file (or in the case of code possibly from the original program file). This - a valid page fault - normally happens quite invisibly. Sometimes, through

Health Care Reform Bill Obama Care Research Paper

Health Care Reform Bill Obama Care - Research Paper Example Even though, the government is spending billions of dollars every year to help the public, it is not reaching the ordinary people because of the administrative problems and the exploitation of the private insurance companies. Still United States has the highest healthcare costs compared to some other developed countries. President Obama, even before his election promised that he will make immense changes in the healthcare sector in order to make it more public-friendly. Obama has assured the public before the election that he will increase the insurance coverage, decrease the cost and social burden of healthcare, implement reform in insurance sector and increase the government involvement, once he succeeded in winning the election. After winning the president election, Obama introduced the legislations (Senate bill and Reconciliation bill) in both houses of the U.S. Congress and succeeded in passing it in March 2010. It is estimated that more than 50 million American citizens do not have the health insurance coverage at present. One of the major criticisms labeled against Obama’s health care bills is the annual increases in healthcare costs per person and the enormous budgetary strain this bill may cause on U.S. state and federal governments. In other words, The nationalization of health care should be unconstitutional because it conflicts with American civil liberties, and it allows some Americans to live off of the government rather than making something themselves.   â€Å"A U.S. district judge in January 2011, Judge Roger Vinson, in Pensacola, Fla., ruled that as a result of the unconstitutionality of the "individual mandate" that requires people to buy insurance, the entire law must be declared void† (Judge Rules Health Care Law Is Unconstitutional). The court declared that the over involvement of the government in healthcare sector is not necessarily the duty of the government. It is unconstitutional to spend the taxpayer’s money in this way. The primary role or the duty of the government is to give protection to the life and property of the citizen. However, the primary duty of the government does not include the protection of the public health according to the ruling of the court. The court also observed that the Congress does not have the authority or power to pass such a bill according to American constitution. It is the duty of the Congress to reform or regulate the healthcare market, when we consider the huge size of the health care sector with respect to national economy. However, Congress does not have the authority to put the entire responsibility of keeping the health of the public intact, upon the government. A federal judge in Virginia also ruled against the bill a week before. The judge declared that the â€Å"law's requirement that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014 is invalid† (O’Dell). However, the Obama administration argued that the above clause was attached in the law based on a constitutional provision, giving Congress power to regulate interstate commerce. Even though the Congress argued in favor of the bill, the court rejected the argument of Congress, citing reasons that: The means of payment for services in the interstate health care market is an economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce, and the requirement that participants in the health care market have insurance to pay for the services they consume is thus a quintessential exercise of the commerce power (O’