The K switch checks for and kills phantom jobs under UNIX. These can occur when the underlying UNIX process is somehow destroyed (such as by a kill –KILL operation performed by a superuser) without A-Shell being able to trap and recognize it. If such a process is found, SYSTAT will then remove it cleanly from the job table, and output both an asterisk in column seven of the display, as well as a more descriptive message on the following line.