Cloud computing setups are a huge investment of resources and personnel to maintain. As<br />the workload on a system is a major contributing factor to both the performance of the<br />system and a representation of the needs of system users, a clear understanding of the<br />workload is critical to organizations that support supercomputing systems. In this paper,<br />we analyze traces from two production level supercomputers to infer the characteristics of<br />their workloads, and make observations as to the needs of supercomputer users based on<br />them. We particularly focus on the usage of graphical processing units by domain<br />scientists. Based on this analysis, we generate a synthetic workload that can be used for<br />testing future systems, and make observations as to e"cient resource provisioning. / Master of Science

Threat perception is an important issue in today's world. As the line between hostile and non-hostile entities is blurred, it becomes more important for individuals to clearly distinguish between those who would present danger and those who would not. This series of experiments tested whether observers engaged in a dual-task paradigm perceived a greater amount of threat from target stimuli than they did when they were engaged in the threat task alone. The first experiment revealed that observers rated targets as more threatening when they were engaged in the additional task than when they only rated the targets themselves. Response time to the targets was also slower when a secondary task was present. This difference was more pronounced when the secondary task was presented via the auditory channel. Participants also rated overall workload higher when performing a secondary task, with the highest ratings being associated with the dual-task auditory condition. In the second experiment, the design crossed sensory modality with the presence or non-presence of threat. Inter-stimulus interval was also manipulated. The presence of threat was associated with faster response times, though when both tasks had threat components, response time was not the fastest. Additionally, when images came first in the stimulus pairs, observers were slower to respond to the first stimulus than when the sounds were presented first. Results supported the conclusion that additional task loading can affect the perception of threat. The modality of the additional task seems to also play a role in threat assessment performance. Results also led to the conclusion that threat-related visual stimuli are more challenging to process than threat-related auditory stimuli. Future research can now investigate how different types of tasks affect the threat perception task. Implications for better training of soldiers and for the design of automated systems are presented.

Academic burnout is prevalent among university students. Many studies have shown the importance of interpersonal (e.g. social support) and external (e.g. workload) factors in determining the causes of burnout. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of workload, social support, psychosocial training, and gender on burnout among university students and the degree to which these factors can predict burnout levels. Replicating other studies, measures of workload (objective and subjective), social support (Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support), and previous psychosocial training were related to burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory) among 150 undergraduate students. Consistent with existing literature, high levels of burnout were associated with high levels of both objective and subjective workload, with subjective workload having a greater impact. Lower levels of burnout were associated with higher levels of social support. Previous psychosocial training was not associated with the levels of burnout. Social support from teachers was found to be to most influential variable within this study. This unique finding can contribute to the limited existing body of knowledge on academic burnout, as well as bring awareness to university administrators and faculty regarding the important role that teachers play in the academic success of their students.

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