Questions

The data unit created at the application layer is called a message, at the transport layer the data unit created is called either a segment or an user datagram, at the network layer the data unit created is called the datagram, at the data link layer the datagram is encapsulated in to a frame and finally transmitted as signals along the transmission media.

Time taken for switching from one process to other is pure over head. Because the system does no useful work while switching. So one of the solutions is to go for threading when ever possible.