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Systems operate in real-time to the degree that they achieve that objective.
Determinism and maximum entropy are the end-points of the predictability measure. Common examples of soft real-time computing are that acceptable optimality and predictability of timeliness is for either the mean tardiness, or the number of missed deadlines, to have either a particular least upper bound, or a particular probability distribution. Although there are always fewer larger scale real-time systems than smaller scale ones, they are at least as important. Indeed, a small improvement in the predictability and optimality of timeliness at a higher level of control in an enterprise often results in far more benefit than does a large improvement in the predictability and optimality of timeliness at the classical device level of control in the enterprise. Many other physical objects and scientific or engineering endeavors are impossible without advanced and specialized understanding of physics.