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This is an article from International Conference on Supercomputing in the Proceedings of the 19th annual international conference on Supercomputing. The article provides an in depth analysis of a particular technique in monitoring performance in real-time of hardware performance counters that then further analysis of bottlenecks in the microarchitecture and the software that meets hardware at a high-level abstraction layer. This real-time analysis can improve the optimization of existing software systems and lead to more efficient platforms, even applications in parallel computing. I found this article interesting as it is a technique that can improve the level of hardware literacy not only within the hardware engineering community, but it is also a technique that can be used by software developers to study the performance of their code in real life circumstances.

Health literacy is basic reading and numerical skills that allow a person to function in the health care environment. Even though most adults read at an eighth-grade level, and 20 percent of the population reads at or below a fifth-grade level, most health care materials are written at a 10th-grade level. Older patients are particularly affected because their reading and comprehension abilities are influenced by their cognition and their vision and hearing status. Inadequate health literacy can result in difficulty accessing health care, following instructions from a physician, and taking medication properly. Patients with inadequate health literacy are more likely to be hospitalized than patients with adequate skills. Patients understand medical information better when spoken to slowly, simple words are used, and a restricted amount of information is presented. For optimal comprehension and compliance, patient education material should be written at a sixth-grade or lower reading level, preferably including pictures and illustrations. All patients prefer reading medical information written in clear and concise language. Physicians should be alert to this problem because most patients are unwilling to admit that they have literacy problems. (Am Fam Physician 2005;72:463-8. Copyright© 2005 American Academy of Family Physicians.)