A real-time operating system. (RTOS) is an operating system intended to serve (      ) application process data as it comes in, typically without buffering delays. A key (      ) of a RTOS is the level of its consistency concerning the amount of time it takes to accept and complete an application抯 task; the variability is jitter. A hard real-time operating system has (      ) jitter than a soft real-time operating system. The chief design goal is not high throughput, but rather a guarantee of a soft or hard performance category. A RTOS has an advanced algorithm for scheduling. (      ) flexibility enables a wider, computer-system orchestration of process priorities, but a real-time OS is more frequently dedicated to a narrow set of applications. Key factors in a real-time OS are minimal (      ) latency and minimal thread switching latency.