The kernel maintains a priority value (sometimes termed the scheduling priority) for each thread. The priority value is a positive integer and varies inversely with the importance of the associated thread. That is, a smaller priority value indicates a more important thread. When the scheduler is looking for a thread to dispatch, it chooses the dispatchable thread with the smallest priority value. The formula for calculating the priority value is: priority value = base priority + nice penalty + (CPU penalty based on recent CPU usage) The recent CPU usage value of a given thread is incremented by 1 each time that thread is in control of the CPU when the timer interrupt occurs (every 10 milliseconds). The recent CPU usage value is displayed as the C column in the ps command output. The maximum value of recent CPU usage is 120. The default algorithm calculates the CPU penalty by dividing recent CPU usage by 2. The CPU-penalty-to-recent-CPU-usage ratio is therefore 0.5. This rat...